Bengaluru: Declaring year 2020 as the year of Gaganyaan and Chandrayaan-3, ISRO Chief K Sivan said that four men from the Indian Air Force have been selected to undergo training for India’s first human spaceflight mission.

Addressing a press conference at the ISRO headquarters here, Sivan said the four astronauts, whose names have not been disclosed, will undergo training in Russia from the third week of January.

It may be recalled that the first-level of selection of Indian astronauts for Mission Gaganyaan was completed at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine here, the Indian Air Force (IAF) in September, 2019.

Gaganyaan is India’s maiden human spaceflight programme wherein the selected pilots had to pass through extensive physical exercise tests, lab investigations, clinical tests, radiological tests and psychology evaluation, the IAF had said.

Mission Gaganyaan aims to launch an Indian-crewed spacecraft by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) by 2022.

The Gaganyaan project is worth Rs 10,000 crore. It was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day speech last year.

It involves a three-member Indian crew being sent to space for a period of seven days. The spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 km.

Two unmanned and one manned flight will be undertaken as part of the Gaganyaan mission. The training for the four pilots will take place at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia, said sources.

Talking about Chandrayaan-2, Sivan said that the ISRO has made good progress in Chandrayaan-2, even though they could not land it.

The year 2019 witnessed the ISRO touching the mark of 319-foreign satellite launches; deciding to go for another moon landing mission called Chandrayaan-3; setting up Human Space Flight Centre; starting the young scientist programme; signing agreement with Indian Air Force (IAF) to select and train Indian astronauts for the country’s manned mission.