First test flight of Gaganyaan in December this year, says ISRO

ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan today said that India’s maiden manned space mission – Gaganyaan will conduct its first test flight in December this year. Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Professor Narayanan said that Gaganyaan is progressing well as 80 percent tests or around seven thousand 700 tests have been conducted so far. He added that the remaining two thousand 300 test will be completed by March next year. Highlighting other achievements of ISRO, Professor Narayanan said that 196 accomplishments have been achieved so far this year including GLEX-2025 and a high thrust electric propulsion system. He noted that a 6 thousand 500 kilogram communication satellite of USA will be launched from Indian launchpad. He further highlighted that 13 terabits of data from Aditya L1 has been provided to the scientific community through this year.Talking about ISRO’s role in Axiom-4 Mission, the space chief mentioned that ISRO’s technical expertise played crucial role in ensuring safe launch of the mission. He noted that ISRO corrected the LOX leakage observed in the first stage of Falcon-9 Rocket, avoiding catastrophic failure.