Gaganyaan-1
Gaganyaan-1 (G1) — the first uncrewed orbital test flight of India's Gaganyaan crew vehicle. A human-rated LVM3 rocket is to launch its orbital module — a crew module and a service module — from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, carrying the half-humanoid robot Vyommitra, to prove systems flying for the first time before astronauts are trusted to them. India's Department of Space, which runs ISRO, gives the fourth quarter of 2026 as its target; no launch date has been announced.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- ISRO
- Status
- Planned
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 0.998 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 724,976 km
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.289 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Gaganyaan-1 is the rehearsal India flies before it trusts a capsule with people. On the first uncrewed orbital flight of the Gaganyaan crew vehicle, a human-rated LVM3 rocket is to carry the orbital module — a crew module and a service module — into low Earth orbit from Sriharikota, and the crew module is to come home under parachutes to a splashdown in Indian waters. Its only passenger is Vyommitra, a half-humanoid robot. ISRO's plan is that the safety and reliability of every system are proven on uncrewed flights before astronauts fly, so this flight's job is to test, for the first time in orbit, the technologies a crew will depend on. The ground work has already flown: a test vehicle fired the crew escape system in flight in October 2023, and helicopter drops have tested the parachutes on a crew module as heavy as G1's. India's Department of Space gives the fourth quarter of 2026 as the target; no launch date has been announced.
- 2023Crew escape tested in flight (TV-D1)Milestone
A single-stage test vehicle lifts a Gaganyaan crew module and fires its crew escape system mid-flight; the module splashes down in the Bay of Bengal and is recovered.
- 2024G1 launch campaign beginsMilestone
ISRO starts assembling the human-rated LVM3 for G1 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
- 2026Second integrated air-drop testMilestone
A simulated crew module as heavy as G1's is dropped over the Bay of Bengal to test the full parachute sequence.
Images
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