ISRO Chairman S Somanath Declares 2024 as the Year of Gaganyaan Readiness

Sriharikota: ISRO’s Chairman, S Somanath on Monday outlined the space agency’s ambitious plans for 2024, marking it as a year of “Gaganyaan readiness.” The Indian Space Research Organisation has scheduled a series of tests for its manned mission, Gaganyaan, with the goal of achieving readiness by 2025.

Somanath highlighted the success of placing the first X-Ray Polarimeter satellite in the PSLV C58 mission earlier in the day. He emphasized ISRO’s plan to undertake 12-14 missions in 2024, with a specific focus on advancing Gaganyaan preparations.

The Gaganyaan mission initiated with the TV-D1 abort mission in October 2023, and Somanath revealed plans for at least two more such missions in 2024. These unmanned missions serve to assess hardware preparedness, including helicopter-based drop tests to validate parachute systems.

The agenda for 2024 includes launch pad aborts, environmental control support system tests, crew module tests, and simulation tests. Additionally, ISRO is set to conduct a ‘Reusable Launch Vehicle Mission,’ featuring at least two landing experiments under different conditions to validate extremity handling capacity.

Other missions in the pipeline for 2024 include GSLV launches for NISAR, the first flight of GSLV with INSAT-3DS, and the second flight carrying the NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar satellite. Two commercial missions of PSLV for NewSpace India Ltd (NSIL) clients are also planned, along with remote sensing missions.

Highlighting ISRO’s commitment to innovation, Somanath mentioned upcoming scramjet tests using kerosene as fuel for sounding rockets. The space agency aims to undertake a minimum of 12 missions within the year, demonstrating its prowess in hardware production, testing, and mission execution.