The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) intends to launch tourist flights into outer space by 2030. ISRO is already working on a tourism module, said the head of the Indian space agency, Sridhara Paniker Somnath.
“Work is currently underway on India’s space tourism module that will be safe and reusable,” he said.
“The ticket price is likely to be around 60 million rupees (about $700,000). The people who go on this journey will also be able to call themselves astronauts,” added Somnath. In his opinion, these are “competitive prices”.
ISRO’s immediate plans include the first flight of the Indian manned spacecraft Gaganyaan (“Gaganyan”, “skyship”). The list of candidates for participation in it includes four pilots of the Indian Air Force, who previously trained at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Yu. A. Gagarin and the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
“The first launch of a manned spacecraft is scheduled for 2024, the launch date depends on the results of tests in May this year of the crew rescue system, tests of the spacecraft prototype, and its test launch in unmanned mode with a robotic payload,” India’s Minister of State for science and technology Jitendra Singh.
He noted that all work on the design of spacecraft systems has been completed and the creation of the orbital module is currently underway. Launch vehicle systems are also being tested.
In August 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially announced that his country would send its first national space crew into orbit by August 2022, as the country prepared to celebrate 75 years of liberation from British colonial rule. It was originally planned that the three crew members would spend five to seven days in orbit.
However, in November 2022, ISRO announced that due to the coronavirus pandemic, which stopped most of the work on the project in March 2020, the launch of the Gaganyan mission into orbit was postponed.