#Space #update On #Gaganyaan timelines, Isro chief Somanath today said: “If everything goes well, if all 3 [uncrewed] missions go well, we'll have the manned mission. So we’re not putting a very tight timeline… I don’t want to end up like what happened with #Boeing.” 1/n

“We should be very pessimistic. We should be working in such a manner that [we assume] it can go wrong. That type of approach is very important for us to make sure that mission finally becomes successful,” Somanath said. 2/n

He revealed that the first of the three uncrewed missions could happen either later this year or early next year. Isro is also planning the second test vehicle mission and other abort missions as part of preparations for Gaganyaan. 3/n

Speaking about the four big projects cleared by the union cabinet Wednesday, Somanath said: “These plans align with PM Modi's long-term space vision for India leading up to 2047… 4/n

…These initiatives are part of a larger goal to land an Indian astronaut on the Moon by 2040 and represent the first phase of a 6-8 year plan to develop necessary technologies and capabilities.” 5/n

The four key projects include #Chandrayaan4, a #Venus Orbiter Mission, #NGLV designed to boost payload capacity and reduce launch costs and plans for an Indian #spacestation to be operational by 2035. 6/n

While the initial design of #Chandrayaan4 has been completed, he said it would take two more years for the final design. This lunar mission aims to bring back samples from the Moon. Work on critical tech, including docking and robotic sample retrieving arms are ongoing. 7/n

The NGLV aims to increase payload capacity from the current 10 tonne to approximately 30 tonne for low Earth orbit missions, incorporating reusability and modularity to substantially reduce space access costs. 8/n

#Spacestation will provide a permanent habitat for astronauts, enabling continuous space research in areas such as microgravity, biology, drug discovery etc, with Isro, as per Somanath, “exploring international collaborations” for these ambitious undertakings. 9/n

Stressing on the importance of the Venus mission, he pointed out that nations like Russia, China and are also sending missions to Venus by 2028, the same time frame India is planning its mission. 10/n

“...Venus is our nearest planet, though we went to Mars earlier, Venus is more challenging because its atmosphere has a 100 times more pressure than Earth. Mars, Venus and Earth are all sister planets. They’re alike in terms of size, geometry, mass, gravity, speed, etc… 11/n

…But Earth is habitable. Why are Mars or Venus not habitable? We don’t know. Tomorrow Earth may become inhabitable due to some reasons. So if you don’t study what is happening in Mars and Venus, possibly, our future generation will not pardon,” he said. n/n