ISRO Chairman V Narayanan says preparations for the first uncrewed Gaganyaan flight are progressing vigorously, keeping India on track for a major human-spaceflight milestone before the end of 2026.

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• ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said work is progressing vigorously and systematically toward launching the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission, G1, within this calendar year.
• The announcement followed the successful launch of the GSLV-F17/EOS-05 earth observation satellite, ISRO's first success of the financial year.
• Narayanan also confirmed six more launches are planned for the financial year, including the navigation satellite NVS-03.
• The G1 mission will carry Vyommitra, a half-humanoid robot, to simulate astronaut conditions and validate life-support and cabin environmental systems.
• G1 will fly atop the Human-Rated Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (HLVM3), a human-rated variant of the LVM3 rocket, from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
• ISRO completed a ground test of the Sub-Orbital Launch Vehicle for Experiments (SOLVE) on 3 July 2026, validating the ten-parachute deployment sequence needed for crew module recovery.
• Further crew module system tests, covering propulsion and life-support integration, were completed on 12 July 2026.
• Two additional uncrewed test flights, G2 and G3, are planned before the first crewed mission, H1, which is now targeted for 2027.
• Four Indian Air Force pilots — Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap and Shubhanshu Shukla — have trained in Russia and at ISRO's Bengaluru facility as India's first astronaut-designates.
• Shukla separately flew to the International Space Station in 2025 aboard the commercial Axiom Mission 4.
• India's longer-term roadmap includes operationalising the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by 2035, with the Union Cabinet having already approved its first module.
• ISRO is coordinating with the European Space Agency on network operations support and with the Australian Space Agency on crew and module recovery cooperation for the human-spaceflight programme.