Ahead of its Manned Mission, ISRO sets up Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Jan 31: Gearing up for its maiden manned space mission 'Gaganyaan', ISRO unveiled its Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru on Wednesday, 30 January. The space agency is gearing up for the human space flight programme by 2021-end, that is likely to include a woman astronaut.

Gaganyaan is the "highest priority" for ISRO in 2019, according to the space agency. The plan is to have the first unmanned mission in December 2020 and second, in July 2021. Once this is completed, the manned mission will happen in December 2021.

The Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) was inaugurated on Wednesday by K Kasturirangan, former ISRO Chairman, in the presence of K Sivan, ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space at the ISRO Headquarter campus in Bengaluru, the space agency said on its website.

Directors of other ISRO Centres, former Chairmen and other dignitaries were also present, it said, adding that a full scale model of 'Gaganyaan's' crew module was also unveiled during the event.

It will take the support of the existing ISRO centres to implement the first development flight of 'Gaganyaan' under the human spaceflight programme. S Unnikrishnan Nair is the founder director of HSFC, while R Hutton is the project director of 'Gaganyaan'.

The Union Cabinet gave its nod for the Rs 9,023 crore programme recently.