Mission “Gaganyaan” to be launched in 2023:

The Union Minister of Science & Technology informed that India’s maiden human space mission, “Gaganyaan” will be launched in 2023.

Context

The Union Minister of Science & Technology informed that India’s maiden human space mission, “Gaganyaan” will be launched in 2023.

The Gaganyaan Programme envisages undertaking the demonstration of human spaceflight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in the short-term and will lay the foundation for a sustained Indian human space exploration programme in the long run.

A low Earth orbit (LEO) is, as the name suggests, an orbit that is relatively close to Earth’s surface.
It is normally at an altitude of less than 1000 km but could be as low as 160 km above Earth – which is low compared to other orbits, but still very far above Earth’s surface.

Objective: The Rs 10,000-crore mission aims to demonstrate India's capability to send humans to low earth orbit and bring them back to Earth safely.
The mission plans to use the newly operationalized GSLV MkIII launch vehicle that carried Chandrayaan-2. However, it will need to be “human rated”, or get enough systems and redundancies built in so that it becomes safe to carry humans, rather than just satellites.
A successful Gaganyaan mission will catapult India into the elite club with the US, Russia, and China.

Firstly, the test vehicle flight for the validation of Crew Escape System performance and the 1st Uncrewed mission of Gaganyaan (G1) are scheduled to be launched during the beginning of the 2nd half of 2022.
This will be followed by a second uncrewed mission at the end of 2022 carrying “Vyommitra”, a spacefaring human-robot developed by ISRO.
Finally, the first crewed Gaganyaan Mission will be launched in 2023.

Russia: Four pilots selected for the mission are undergoing astronaut training in Russia. A training facility for astronauts is being set up in Bengaluru. It will also provide equipment like a spacesuit, crew seat and Viewport.
France: India recently signed an agreement with the French space agency National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) to provide equipment it has developed for the International Space Station.