Plan is to make Gaganyaan mission indigenous: ISRO

SRIHARIKOTA: The Indian Space Research Organisation wants to make the ambitious manned mission Gaganyaan "more and more" indigenous by utilising the facilities available in the country, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference after successfully launching ISRO's earth observation satellite HysIS and 30 other co-passengers into their designated orbits, Sivan, however, said the space agency may have to take outside help for some tests. HysIS means Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite.

"We want to make use of maximum facilities available in India and also we want to make it more and more indigenous," he said.

"In order to meet the Prime Minister's (Narendra Modi) vision (of sending humans to space) by 2022, to undertake some testing we may go abroad. But we have not decided that," he added.

The space agency is aiming to undertake the first unmanned programme under the Gaganyaan project by December 2020. If Gaganyaan is successful, India would become the fourth nation to achieve the feat.

On the future launches planned by ISRO, Sivan said, "For next year, we have plans to undertake almost 12-14 missions."

"GSAT-11, we are having in December. Next GSAT-7A is there. In January, we are having a micro-satellite launch, then Chandrayaan-II mission is also there," he said.