by Somak Adhikari

India’s first manned space mission-Gaganyaan- is expected to take three Indians into space for seven days and the spacecraft will be placed in low earth orbit of 300-400 km.

The Minister Of State for Atomic Energy and Space, Jitendra Singh, gave the details yesterday saying two unmanned Gaganyaan missions will be undertaken prior to sending humans.

Here are some of the major goals likely to be achieved by India in the decade to come.

1. ISRO Target

"The total program is expected to be completed before 2022 with the first unmanned flight within 30 months. The mission will aim to send a three-person crew to space for a period of seven days. The spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 km. The program is expected to cost less than Rs. 10,000 crore," Singh was quoted by NDTV.

Ever since the launch of Mangalyaan in 2013, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has seen an unprecedented rise in popularity and now it’s being counted in the league of NASA and European Space Agency (ESA). ISRO too seeks to add to this repute and has planned back to back 19 missions to be launched till March next year.

Indeed ISRO’s effort need to be hailed and appreciated, India has set other goals too for itself and it’s working towards achieving these goals.

2. Military Modernisation and Manufacturing Hub

India has spent USD 100 billion in last one decade to buy 65 per cent of its defence equipment and unless the government works towards a goal of producing military equipment within the country, the cost of acquiring the weapons cannot be reduced drastically.

Now, keeping this in mind, the government will come out with a major policy next month outlining a roadmap to build a robust defence production industry with an objective to make India one of the top five producers of the military equipment globally.

According to PTI, the Defence Production Policy (DPP-2018) will lay focus on investing adequate resources to develop critical technology for manufacturing defence equipment including fighter jets, attack helicopters and weaponry.

According to the draft policy, the government aims to achieve a turnover of Rs 1,70,000 crore in military goods and services by 2025.

3. 227 GW of Renewable Energy 

India has kept a target of generating 227 GW of renewable energy by 2022. India had earlier kept a target of 175 GW earlier, but after a slew of schemes were started the target has been revised. One of the major initiatives is the International Solar Alliance is India’s initiative. With 19 countries already ratifying its framework and a total of 121 countries situated between Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn being a part of it, India seems to be taking lead in fighting against the carbon emissions cause environmental haemorrhage.

“The ISA is an Indian initiative, jointly launched by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi and the President of France on 30th November 2015 in Paris, on the sidelines of COP-21, the UN Climate Conference. It aims at addressing obstacles to deployment at the scale of solar energy through better harmonisation and aggregation of demand from solar rich countries lying fully or partially between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn,” the Indian government has said in a statement.