“Lot of work has gone into this human flight program and once the test flights are successful, it won’t take much time to put Indians into space”

Indian human space flight program or ‘Gaganyaan’ will reach a decisive state when test flights to evaluate the safety and reliability of the systems developed could be taken up within a year, said former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Kasturirangan on Thursday.

“Lot of work has gone into this human flight program and once the test flights are successful, it won’t take much time to put Indians into space. Within the next decade there will also be missions to Moon when we will try to land a rover and missions to study other planetary systems,” he informed.

The space scientist was speaking at the BM Birla science prize awards function held at the G.P. Birla Archaeological Astronomical and Scientific Research Institute (GPBAASRI). The award is given to young scientists of less than 40 years of age for research done in the country. It carries a citation and cash award of 1 lakh.