India plans to send humans into space for the first time in 2024. The “Gaganyaan” mission, originally scheduled for this year, has been postponed due to Corona, India’s Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said, according to the Indian news agency IANS.
The pandemic is affecting the training of designated astronauts in India and Russia, the minister said. During a test flight, a humanoid, or humanoid robot, is expected to fly into space next year.
India’s space program was mainly driven by Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He wants to show that his country is becoming more important internationally. By sending people into space, India hopes to advance cheap space missions and science, among other things. The country is known for transporting satellites into space relatively cheaply, also for other countries.
Various projects postponed due to Corona
Several projects have been postponed due to the corona pandemic – including another moon landing called “Chandrayaan-3” after an attempt (“Chandrayaan-2”) failed in 2019. Now it is scheduled for next year, it said.
First attempt at moon landing in 2019 failed
The $142 million Chandrayaan-2 mission, designed to map the surface of the Moon’s Antarctic, analyze the ground and search for water, failed in early September 2019, when the “Vikram” landing module and the “Pragyan” rover in it crashed on the lunar surface.
Some experts criticize that the emerging country with its 1.3 billion inhabitants spends a lot of money on large space projects while many people still live in poverty.
Source: Krone
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