Gearing up for its maiden manned space mission ‘Gaganyaan’, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) unveiled its Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The space agency is gearing up for the human spaceflight programme by end of 2021 that is likely to include a woman astronaut.

🇮🇳 #ISROMissions 🇮🇳

Human Space Flight Centre is operational now after its inauguration by Dr K Kasturirangan, ex-Chairman, ISRO. Chairman Dr K Sivan and other officials too were present. The facility is next to ISRO HQ. A full-scale #Gaganyaan crew module model also unveiled. pic.twitter.com/hIEf8pu3Lq — ISRO (@isro) January 31, 2019

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

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

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The directors of other ISRO Centres, former Chairman and other dignitaries were also present for the occasion, it said, adding that a full-scale model of Gaganyaans crew module was also unveiled during the event.

HSFC shall be responsible for implementation of Gaganyaan project which involves end-to-end mission planning, development of engineering systems for crew survival in space, crew selection and training and also pursue activities for sustained human space flight missions, ISRO said.

It will take the support of existing ISRO centres to implement the first development flight of Gaganyaan under the human spaceflight programmer. 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.

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