BENGALURU: India’s first manned space mission, the Gaganyaan mission, will have two mission control centre, which the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has set up in Bengaluru and Sriharikota, and which will handle primary and secondary mission for its uncrewed mission scheduled to be late this year as well as the crewed mission slated to be launched in the first quarter of 2027.
Speaking on the second day of the three-day 9th edition of Bengaluru Space Expo- 2026 in Bengaluru, SS Vinod, Gaganyaan project director, said that while the international mission control centres will be used for communication in the Gaganyaan crewed and uncrewed missions, the primary control and data operations will be from India and this was a major step towards the missions, for which the two mission control centres at Bengaluru and Sriharikota will be used.
He said that as ISRO Chairman V Narayanan recently announced that the first uncrewed mission (Gaganyaan-1, or G-1) would be carried out in this calendar year, it is important for many thermal and micro-gravity experiments to be carried out during this mission.
For the main Gaganyaan mission – the human mission, or the crewed mission – apart from laying importance on the technological aspects, work also continues on improving the psychological and physiological aspects of the crew. He said this sector needed to be improved upon, while technology should be focused on.
Biju SR, Director, Human Space Flight Centre, ISRO, said that for the immediate Gaganyaan mission the Launch Vehicle Mark-III (LVM3) – which was previously known as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III (GSLV Mk-III) – will be used, and work on imparting world-class training to the astronauts from a dedicated centre in Bengaluru is ongoing.
‘3RD PARTY INSURANCE FOR SATS LAUNCHED BY PVT COS’
Bengaluru: Prafulla Kumar Jain, director, Programme Management and Authorisation Directorate, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), said the government is working on launching third party insurance scheme for satellites launched by private companies.
The government had already approved this insurance for launch operations. Discussions for the satellites and the liability period are under discussion. IN-SPACe already provides launch support and manufacturing support of 50% and 30%, respectively, for Indian start-up companies, and the insurance scheme services is a new domain which the government is now looking at.
To provide further support to the Indian space sector, the government also announced to extend the GST exemption to the private sector, which was so far reserved for ISRO and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the Commercial arm of ISRO.
The government is also thinking of handing over some of the sat-buses (core structural and functional frameworks of satellites) of ISRO to the private sector for operation and maintenance and to bring in a third party review mechanism by experts to strengthen the insurance schemes.