As India awaits the launch of Gaganyaan, the first uncrewed mission of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission, G1, is ready to be launched in December this year. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan confirmed that the uncrewed mission will be launched with a half-humanoid robot, Vyommitra.

Speaking at a press briefing, he lauded IAF Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla for his successful Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Shukla became the second Indian to go to space and the first Indian to go to ISS.

He is also one of the astronauts selected for the crewed Gaganyaan mission. "The first uncrewed mission, G1, is going to be lifted off by this year's end, maybe close to December. And in that, the Vyommitra, the half-humanoid, is going to fly," Narayanan said.

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Narayanan also thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for announcing the Gaganyaan programme on August 15, 2018. Heaping praises on ISRO's efforts, Narayanan said that it made a lot of accomplishments in the last four months.

"The entire ISRO programme is purely a teamwork of 20,000 employees, 450 industrial partners and 300 academia partners. Today, along with us, we have got the Gaganyatris joining in hand in hand for our programmes".

Mentioning various programmes of ISRO, he stated: "There is telemedicine, tele-education, television broadcasting, and real-time connecting of something around 8,600 trains, 21,000 shipping vessels are connected".

He further added, "ISRO is doing an outstanding job in the area of disaster warning". "A total of 13 out of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals are being supported by ISRO," he said.

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He listed other space achievements of the ISRO like the Aditya L1 Sun mission and the NISAR satellite mission. "We have made a major breakthrough in Cryogenic engine technology. The tests are going very well, and a lot of indigenisation activities are progressing well."

Talking about Aditya L1, he said, "This year we have released 13 terabit data". He termed the images of the Sun's orbit taken by the satellite, "a fantastic achievement".

Narayanan, who is a known rocket scientist, added that the recently launched NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite (NISAR) satellite "is healthy and all systems are working well".

(With IANS inputs)