Chandrayaan-3 launch in 2021, four from IAF chosen for Gaganyaan: ISRO
Bengaluru, Jan 1: ISRO on Wednesday announced that the launch of country's third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3 may happen next year and said four from the Indian Air Force have been selected for the ambitious Gaganyaan programme, whose astronaut training would commence soon in Russia.
The announcement comes a day after Union Minister Jitendra Singh said India will launch Chandrayaan-3 in 2020.
Addressing a press conference here, ISRO chairman K Sivan said work related to the third lunar mission was going on smoothly.
It will have a lander, rover and a propulsion module like its predecessor, he noted.
He also said the launch of Chandrayaan-3 may shift to next year.
Work on both Chandrayaan-3 and Gaganyaan, the country's maiden manned space mission, was going on simultaneously, he added.
Noting that Chandrayaan-2 orbiter's mission life was seven years, he said it would be used for the third lunar mission as well.
Giving an estimate of the project cost for Chandrayaan-3, Sivan said, "it would cost Rs 250 crore."
On the launch pad to come up in Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu, Sivan said, "apart from the space port at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the land acquisition for a second one has been initiated in Tuticorin district."
As regards the choice of location, he said, "It was mainly to get advantages of southward launch especially for SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle)."
Observing that the pad, once set up would be used for launching SSLVs initially, he said it may be expanded for big ones in future.
On future missions, he said, "25 missions have been planned for 2020."
"The missions that were planned in 2019 and could not be completed would be finished by March this year," he said.
When asked what went wrong with Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2, he said it was due to velocity reduction failure.
"The velocity reduction failure was due to internal reasons," he said.
Chandrayaan-2 mission was India's first attempt to land on lunar surface. The ISRO had planned the landing on the South Pole of the lunar surface. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed.
Sivan also congratulated the Chennai based techie who recently located the Vikram lander that hard-landed and maintained that it was the space agency's policy not to release picture of the crashed module.
Elaborating on the country's maiden manned space mission, Gaganyaan, the ISRO chief said, four astronauts have been identified for the mission and their training will start from third week of this month in Russia.
He also mentioned that all the four astronauts chosen for the programme were men from the Indian Air Force.
"We had good progress in 2019 as regards Gaganyaan. And many of the designs were completed and astronauts' selection process is over. Now, four astronauts identified for training purpose.. that process is also completed," Sivan said.
India has signed agreements with Russia and France for cooperation on the Gaganyaan mission.
The ambitious Gaganyaan mission was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech in 2018.
The space agency has sought an allocation of Rs 14,000 crore from the Centre in the budget for 2020-21.
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UP Cong chief Ajay Rai hospitalised after fainting, stable
Lucknow (PTI): Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai was hospitalised here after he fell unconscious due to low sodium levels, party leaders said on Saturday.
They said he was admitted to Medanta Hospital on Friday evening and is stable.
"Ajay Rai was admitted to Medanta Hospital in Lucknow at around 6 pm on Friday after he fell unconscious as his sodium levels had dropped. He fell unconscious at his residence in Lucknow. For the entire day, he was engaged in party programmes and had also gone to the airport," Uttar Pradesh Congress spokesperson Anshu Awasthi told PTI.
Congress in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Avinash Pande told PTI, "Now, he (Ajay Rai) is stable and I am also reaching Lucknow."
Medanta Hospital Director Dr Rakesh Kapoor told PTI that Rai collapsed at his home on Friday evening and was subsequently admitted to the hospital's emergency ward.
Medical examinations revealed that Rai was suffering from a sodium deficiency and elevated blood pressure. Doctors administered immediate treatment and he is doing significantly better now, Kapoor said.
A team of doctors is monitoring his health. Rai is conversing with others and his condition is stable, he added.
In a post on X late Friday night, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished Rai a speedy recovery.
Rai hails from Varanasi and had contested the 2024 Lok Sabha elections against Modi from the parliamentary constituency. The Congress appointed him as the Uttar Pradesh unit chief in 2023.
