New Delhi: On Friday, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said that India is nowhere less than China in the arena of space, and after the success of human space mission project 'Gaganyaan', it will be equal to its neighbour in all aspects related to the field. This month Chang'e 4, the first Chinese mission to land on and explore the Moon's far side facing away from Earth, carried instruments to analyse the region's geology. India also has an ambitious mission, Chandrayaan-2, to land on Moon's the South Pole, a region unexplored by any country so far.
While, The plan was to initially launch the mission in April last year, but it has now been postponed to the first quarter of this year. "We are nowhere less than China," Sivan said in response to a question that sought to draw a parallel between the two space-faring Asian countries. He further added that India was at par in regards to launch vehicles and spacecraft.
India has announced that 'Gaganyaan' will take off by 2022, while China launched its first manned space mission in 2003. Sivan said that "They had the human space capability, which we did not have, but once we have a successful Gaganyaan project by 2022, we will be equal to them in all aspects. Since all systems are new and we have to go through the testing process and we found that testing was not complete and we're not able to meet the February 2019 schedule. The next available slot was April 2019."
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India and China are two major space-faring giants. While India has launched the South Asian satellite as a gift to its neighbours, China to has been actively engaged with Pakistan and Sri Lanka in these areas.
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