PM Modi On Independence Day: “By 2022, We Will Send An Indian To Space”
New Delhi :
The 370-year-old Red Fort today played venue for a colossal announcement, the ramifications of which perhaps for the first time extend beyond earth itself. India will become the fourth nation to send man to space, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on India’s 72nd Independence Day – his fifth and final address ahead of the next general elections.
"Today, from the ramparts of the Red Fort, I want to give the country a good news," Prime Minister Modi said. "India has always advanced in space science but we have decided that by 2022 when India completes 75 years of Independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space with a tricolor in their hands," he added.
It would be the biggest challenge that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has ever undertaken: to put an Indian in space from Sriharikota using an Indian rocket. And do so with an ambitious deadline of five years.
ISRO hopes to deploy its biggest rocket, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III), to send three Indians into space from Sriharikota in the next few years.
The space agency plans to spend Rs 9,000 crore and hopes to launch the first mission within 40 months. The plans in the "demonstration phase" includes undertaking two unmanned flights and one human flight using Indian technology to catapult a crew of three into a low earth orbit for 5-7 days.
