February 27,2024: Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the names of the four astronauts, who would fly to low-Earth orbit as part of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Gaganyaan — the first crewed Indian space mission.
The selected astronauts are Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, (Group Captain) Angad Prathap, Ajit Krishnan, and Shubanshu Shukla. They are all either wing commanders or group captains with the Indian Air Force (IAF) and have extensive experience working as test pilots.
The announcement came just days after ISRO said it had successfully tested the human readiness of the cryogenic engine, which will be used on the LVM3 vehicles for all of the Gaganyaan missions.
The Gaganyaan missions include both manned and unmanned missions. The first unmanned Gaganyaan-1 mission, a test flight to check the technology readiness for the final mission, is scheduled to take off by the end of 2024. The manned mission, which will fly a three-membered crew into a low earth orbit at an altitude of 400 km for a period of three days, is scheduled later.
