Hyderabad: ISRO chairman V Narayanan on Saturday outlined an ambitious roadmap for India’s space programme, saying the country is preparing for a decisive expansion in launch capability, human spaceflight and lunar exploration while stressing that safety and institutional trust remain central to every mission.Addressing scientists from ISRO, DRDO and the Aeronautical Society of India at the Engineering Staff College of India, the ISRO chief said the country is preparing a G20 satellite for 2027, the first module of an Indian space station by 2028, a series of uncrewed Gaganyaan missions beginning this year, and more advanced lunar missions, including sample return and heavier rover operations.“By 2040, an Indian will land on the moon with the tricolour,” Narayanan said while delivering the Prof Satish Dhawan memorial lecture on ‘Indian Space Programme: Challenges and the Way Forward’ at the ASI’s ongoing conference, linking the lunar mission to the country’s broader aspiration of becoming a developed nation.Narayanan said the proposed G20 satellite would focus on climate studies, air pollution tracking and weather monitoring, with India taking the lead role. He said the mission reflected India’s growing emphasis on trusted international cooperation and practical uses of space technology. He also said India’s 52-tonne space station, Bharatiya Antariksh Station — planned in five modules– received approval for its first module and remained on track for eventual completion by 2035.On human spaceflight, he said three uncrewed Gaganyaan missions are planned before a crewed flight, describing the programme as a joint effort involving ISRO and DRDO in which around 8,000 experiments have already been completed. He said Chandrayaan-4 would be a lunar sample return mission, while Chandrayaan-5 would carry a 6,150-kg lander and a 350-kg rover designed to operate for about 100 days. ISRO is also studying a Venus orbiter, a Mars lander, a next-generation launcher capable of placing 30,000 kg in low-Earth orbit, and a heavier future rocket intended to support India’s goal of landing an Indian on the Moon by 2040.Pointing out that trust, reliability and safety remain central to the agency’s approach, he recalled the failed 1979 SLV-3 mission where former chairman Satish Dhawan publicly accepted responsibility, then allowed the team to receive credit after the subsequent success. Talking about PSLV’s broader legacy, he said launch vehicle development in India advanced through hard lessons, and that every failure had strengthened mission assurance, institutional discipline and readiness for more complex programmes.He said India reached its 100th launch vehicle mission on Jan 29 last year, a major milestone after the first launch vehicle mission in 1979 did not succeed. He also highlighted India’s record of placing 104 satellites in orbit with a single rocket without collision and said 433 satellites from 34 countries had been launched from Indian soil in commercial missions. Among recent achievements, Narayanan cited the successful docking experiment in 2025, which made India the fourth country to demonstrate that capability, the launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, and the Dec 24, 2025, commercial launch of the heaviest satellite ever lifted from Indian soil.
