India has launched satellites since the 1970s and landed on the Moon in 2023 — but has never sent its own astronauts to space aboard its own rocket. Gaganyaan ('sky craft'), announced in 2018, is the programme to change that: a crewed orbital mission using a human-rated Indian launch vehicle.
Gaganyaan · Human Spaceflight
Gaganyaan · Human Spaceflight
Gaganyaan is ISRO's programme to send Indians into space on an Indian rocket from Indian soil. After uncrewed tests, the first crewed orbital flight is targeted for 2027 — a step toward a national space station by 2035. The counter marks programme milestones (illustrative).
2027
First crewed mission (target)
4
Gaganyatris selected
2035
Indian space station (target)
First crewed mission (target)
| Year | Programme milestones |
|---|---|
| 2018 | 0 |
| 2019 | 1 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2023 | 3 |
| 2024 | 4 |
| 2025 | 4 |
| 2026 | 5 |
| 2027 | 6 |
2018
0
Programme milestones
20182027
Since 2018
Added
+6
2018
0
2027
6
Why it matters Human spaceflight is mastered by very few nations. Succeeding would make India the fourth country to launch its own astronauts independently, build life-support and re-entry expertise, and inspire a generation — the human complement to Chandrayaan and Aditya.
- The first crewed Gaganyaan mission is targeted for 2027, to low-Earth orbit.
- Four IAF test pilots were selected as India's first astronaut-candidates (Gaganyatris).
- It uses the human-rated LVM-3 rocket; uncrewed and robotic (Vyommitra) tests come first.
- Longer-term goals: an Indian space station (Bharatiya Antariksh Station) by 2035, a crewed Moon mission by 2040.
History
Notable milestone
Four Indian Air Force test pilots have been selected and trained as the first Gaganyatris. ISRO is running a sequence of uncrewed test flights — including the robotic astronaut Vyommitra — to prove crew safety before the first human flight, now targeted for 2027.
How it works
A human-rated LVM-3 rocket carries a crew module to low-Earth orbit, where astronauts orbit for up to three days before a parachute-assisted splashdown. New systems had to be built from scratch: life support, a crew-escape system for aborts, and heat shields for re-entry — the hardest parts of human spaceflight.
Outlook
Only the US, Russia and China have launched humans on their own rockets; Gaganyaan aims to make India the fourth. It is the human anchor for a bigger roadmap — an Indian space station (Bharatiya Antariksh Station) by 2035 and an Indian on the Moon by 2040.
The road ahead
Human spaceflight allows no shortcuts — every abort scenario and life-support failure must be tested before a person flies, which is why the timeline moved from 2022 to 2027. Beyond the first flight, the challenge is turning a one-off mission into a sustained human-spaceflight capability that a space station demands.
By the numbers
2027 — target for the first crewed flight. 4 Gaganyatris selected. LVM-3 — the human-rated launch vehicle. 2035 space station and 2040 crewed Moon mission — the longer roadmap. Sources: ISRO, Department of Space, PIB.
Source: ISRO — Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme, 2018→2027. Milestone count illustrative.