Union Cabinet approves budget worth Rs 10,000 for Gaganyaan

It seems the Gaganyaan mission will be a reality at last as the Union Cabinet has approved a budget of Rs 10000 crore for the proposed mission of human spaceflight Gaganyaan on Friday. This approval has come as good news because finally, India’s dream to send Gaganyaan will come true which aims at sending astronauts to space by 2022.

As announced by Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in a press conference on Friday, "The Union Cabinet has approved the Gaganyaan project under which a three-member crew will be sent to space for at least seven days."

It was the Prime Minister of the nation Narendra Modi who first announced the Ganganyaan during his Independence Day speech delivered on August 15. Followed by the formal announcement by the PM, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) too has updated its preparations for the same.

The ISRO has already started working on the implementation of the spacecraft and for that, it has even started the process of selecting experiments. Experiments like biological air filters and biosensors, life support for the inhabitants of the spacecraft, biomedical waste management, monitoring toxic gases etc at least 10 various sorts of experiments are being already conducted by the space research organization.

One of the ISRO officials stated, “While we have indicated 10 areas that we are interested in, we won’t be restricting experiments to just these areas. Also, we will be getting specific experiments in these areas from various institutions across India.”

This has also been stated by ISRO that it seeks National Scientific Community to give its inputs while conducting the experiments in the microgravity platform in LEO. This is essential as ISRO is planning for a human spaceflight mission.

As ISRO is planning to get the mission implemented by 2022, it is looking for two unmanned flight testings, one in 2020 and the other in 2021.

Notably, the astronauts to travel in the Gaganyaan are not selected yet and the selection process will take place once ISRO works in cooperation with the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF agency Institute of Aerospace Medicine will be responsible for selecting the astronauts.

Also read: ISRO Launches its Latest Communication Satellite GSAT-29