The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is targeting the launch of first of the two planned uncrewed flights under the Gaganyaan mission before Independence Day this year.

ISRO chairperson Dr K Sivan said the third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 will be launched by middle of the next year. In a letter encouraging the scientists at the organization, Dr Sivan said, launch of EOS-4 and EOS-6 onboard PSLV and launch of EOS-02 onboard maiden flight of SSLV are immediate tasks at hand this year.

He said, there is a directive to launch the first unmanned mission before the 75th anniversary of Country’s independence i,e, August 15th this year and all the stakeholders are putting their best effort to meet the schedule.

Dr. Sivan said, Chandrayaan-3 design changes incorporating and testing has seen huge progress and the mission could be launched by the middle of next year.

The launch of the three earth observation satellites – EOS-02, EOS-04, and EOS-06 have been delayed for several months now. All big-ticket scientific missions, including India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1, which were to take place in 2021 were pushed when the launch schedule was revised after the second wave of the pandemic.