Overview
- Narayanan, speaking at the SMOPS-2026 conference on Wednesday, said rockets work for minutes while spacecraft need years of care, which makes operations decisive.
- He said ISRO will fly three uncrewed Gaganyaan missions before any crewed flight, with work underway on the first test, and a Department of Space statement placed the first launch in the first quarter of 2026.
- The program’s biggest tasks now are human-rating the launch vehicle, building a crew escape system, and developing environmental control and life-support and safe human–machine software interfaces.
- ISRO is rolling out artificial intelligence tools and cloud-based ground systems to make mission control faster and more reliable.
- The conference gathered Roscosmos, JAXA, ESA and CNES and about 400 papers, as ISRO showcased lessons from Chandrayaan-3 after the Chandrayaan-2 setback.