Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday commenced presentation of the Budget for 2021-22 in the Lok Sabha.
In announcing the allocation for the Space Department under the Union Budget 2021-22, the Finance Minister said that the first unmanned launch of the space flight mission 'Gaganyaan' has been planned for December, 2021.
For the uninitiated, Gaganyaan (literally, "Sky Craft") is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme.
The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capability.
Sitharaman today said that four Indian astronauts have been trained in Russia for the Gaganyaan space mission.
It was earlier announced that the crewed vehicle has been delayed to no earlier than 2022, due to the adverse impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials.
The Finance Minister has now announced that India is looking at the target of December, 2021 for an unmanned launch of the 'Gaganyaan'.
New Space India Ltd is also slated to execute the PSLV-C51, the 53rd mission of the Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) programme, launch.
Meanwhile, a financial outlay of Rs 4000 crore has also been detailed in the Union Budget for deep ocean survey from space.
The PSLV C51 rocket will carry primary payload, Amazônia-1 and secondary payloads like Anand, SatishSat and UnitySat.
The Gaganyaan project has the objective of demonstrating human space flight capability to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with three crew members in orbit and safely recovering them after the mission.
Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO had said that its heavy lift launcher, GSLV MkIII is identified for the Gaganyaan mission and the process for human rating of this rocket is in progress.
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