India's first human space flight delayed to fourth quarter of 2024

India’s maiden human space flight – the H-1 mission – is set to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024, India's Minister of State for Space, Science, Technology, Earth Sciences and Atomic Energy, Dr. Jitendra Singh said yesterday.

The country's human space flight programme is named “Gaganyaan.”

“In view of the paramount importance of crew safety, two test vehicle missions without crew are planned before the H-1 mission to demonstrate the performance of [the] crew escape system and [the] parachute-based deceleration system for different flight conditions,” Singh said.

“The first uncrewed mission, named G-1, is targeted to be launched in the last quarter of 2023, followed by the second uncrewed G-2 mission in the second quarter of 2024, before the final human space flight H-1 mission in the fourth quarter of 2024," he added.

Singh explained that The G-1 mission is aimed at validating the performance of the human-rated launch vehicle, the orbital module propulsion system, mission management, communication system and recovery operations. The mission will carry a humanoid as payload.

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