Gaganyaan: India’s Human Spaceflight Programme, HLVM3, Crew Module, Astronaut-Designates, Test Flights and the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (UPSC Notes + PYQs)

Background

Only the Soviet Union/Russia, the USA and China have launched humans on their own rockets. Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space in April 1984, flying on the Soviet Soyuz T-11 to the Salyut 7 station. Gaganyaan was announced by the Prime Minister on 15 August 2018. ISRO set up the Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru (2019) to lead it. In September 2024 the Cabinet revised the programme to include eight missions and the first module of the space station, raising total funding to about ₹20,193 crore.

Hardware

• HLVM3: the LVM3 rocket made “human-rated” with redundant systems and a crew escape system.
• Orbital module: a crew module (pressurised, with life support, where astronauts sit and which returns to Earth) and a service module (propulsion and power, discarded before re-entry).
• Crew Escape System: solid motors that pull the crew module away if the rocket fails.
• Environmental Control and Life Support System, developed in India.
• Parachutes and splashdown in the sea, with Navy recovery.
• Vyommitra: a half-humanoid robot to fly on an uncrewed flight to test conditions for crew.

Tests and milestones

• TV-D1 (21 October 2023): test vehicle flight that demonstrated the crew escape system at high speed; the crew module was recovered from the Bay of Bengal.
• Integrated air-drop tests of the parachute system (2025).
• SpaDeX (docking achieved January 2025): India became the fourth country to dock two spacecraft, a skill needed for a space station.
• Ground tests of engines and the service module propulsion system.

Before a crewed flight, ISRO plans uncrewed orbital missions. Check ISRO’s website for the latest schedule, since dates have moved several times.

The astronaut-designates and Axiom-4

Four Indian Air Force test pilots were named in February 2024: Group Captains Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap and Wing Commander (now Group Captain) Shubhanshu Shukla. They trained at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia and in India. Shukla flew as pilot on Axiom-4, a commercial mission on a SpaceX Dragon launched on 25 June 2025. He became the first Indian to visit the International Space Station, carried out Indian experiments in microgravity, and returned on 15 July 2025. The experience in training, operations and medicine feeds directly into Gaganyaan.

Why it matters

• Technology push in life support, materials, robotics and medicine.
• Microgravity research in biology and materials.
• Prestige and partnerships; India joins a small club.
• Industry participation (over hundreds of firms supply parts) and space start-ups.
• Inspiration for science education.

Critics ask whether money should go to human flight when robotic missions do more science per rupee; ISRO argues that both build capability and that costs are modest compared with other space powers.

The road ahead

The Government’s space vision sets the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (first module targeted for 2028, full station by 2035) and an Indian on the Moon by 2040. The Indian Space Policy 2023 and IN-SPACe open the sector to private firms, which will supply parts of these missions.

Who does what

This spread across agencies is itself a lesson: human spaceflight demands medicine, materials, food science and naval operations, so the programme strengthens national capacity well beyond rockets.

Bharatiya Antariksh Station

Gaganyaan is the first step in a longer plan. In 2023 the Government set targets of an Indian space station, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, by 2035 and an Indian on the Moon by 2040. The first module of the station is planned for launch around 2028. The SpaDeX mission of December 2024-January 2025, in which two satellites docked in orbit, demonstrated the docking technology a station needs, making India the fourth country to do so after the US, Russia and China.

Escape and safety systems

The crew escape system pulls the crew module away from a failing rocket with fast-acting solid motors and brings it down by parachute. ISRO tested it in the Pad Abort Test of July 2018 and the TV-D1 flight of October 2023. The crew module also carries ten parachutes, deployed in sequence, and is designed to float until the Navy recovers it.

The science of keeping humans alive in orbit

A satellite needs power and a stable temperature; a crew needs much more. The crew module must hold breathable air at sea-level pressure, remove carbon dioxide, control humidity and temperature, supply water and food, and handle waste. Astronauts face microgravity (which weakens bones and muscles and shifts body fluids), radiation from the Sun and cosmic rays, and the forces of launch and re-entry, which can reach several times Earth’s gravity. The capsule’s heat shield must survive temperatures of well over 1,500°C as it slows from about 7.8 km per second. The Defence Research and Development Organisation’s labs, including the Defence Food Research Laboratory (space food) and the Institute of Aerospace Medicine of the Air Force (crew selection and medical tests), support ISRO here.

Safety rules for human flight are stricter than for satellites: every critical system needs a backup, and the rocket must show a very high reliability. That is why the programme moved step by step from pad abort tests (2018) to the TV-D1 flight and air-drop tests, and why uncrewed orbital flights come before crew.

How India compares

The International Space Station is expected to be retired around 2030, so national and commercial stations will matter more in the 2030s. India’s plan to build its own station fits this shift and gives it a seat in future partnerships, for example with NASA under the Artemis Accords, which India signed in June 2023.

PYQ trend

Prelims 2025 asked which missions (Axiom-4, SpaDeX, Gaganyaan) support microgravity research. Expect questions on HLVM3, crew escape tests and the space station. Mains GS-III uses it in space technology answers.

Gaganyaan: UPSC angle

Gaganyaan UPSC PYQs (Prelims)

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Mains PYQs on this topic

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Image: Indian Space Research Organisation, Wikimedia Commons, GODL-India