NEW DELHI: Gaganyaan, India's first human space mission, is scheduled to launch in 2024, said Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who made the announcement on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters outside of a gathering, Singh said that the government had originally scheduled the human space trip for 2022--the year of India's 75th anniversary of independence --but that the COVID-19 outbreak had caused timetable changes.

The COVID-19 pandemic "had a toll on the training of astronauts in Russia as well as India," said Singh, who also noted that the Gaganyaan mission's first test flight is scheduled for later this year.

Singh said, a female-looking space-traveling humanoid robot named Vyom Mitra would likely be launched into orbit after the initial test flight.

Four fighter pilots were the potential crew members identified by the Indian Air Force for the human space travel mission. The prospective crew had received their fundamental training in Russia.

After evaluating the results of the two orbital test missions, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch at least two astronauts into low earth orbit in 2024,  he said.

Officials said during the test mission that the spacecraft will be launched to a height of 15 kilometres during the test trip,  where experts will simulate an abort scenario to ensure the return crew capsule lands on Earth using parachutes.
To refine the technology, a similar abort scenario will be performed on the Gaganyaan crew capsule's second orbital test flight at a higher altitude.

The Gaganyaan mission, which will cost Rs 10,000 crore, was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address in 2018.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon will also be launched by ISRO sometime in 2019. According to officials, there will be two launch windows for the lunar mission in February and July of 2019. Chandrayaan-3 is a successor to the Chandrayaan-second mission that crash-landed on the lunar surface.

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