Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his annual Independence Day speech said, India will send an astronaut into space by 2022. He announced at Red Fort in Delhi on Wednesday morning, “We have decided that by 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence, or before that, a son or daughter of India will go to space with a tricolour [Indian flag] in their hands.”
Modi also set a 25 September launch date for a national medical insurance scheme, dubbed “Modicare”, and defended his government’s record, in his last Independence Day address before general elections expected early next year.
If successful, India would be the fourth country in the world to conduct a manned space mission, after the US, China and Russia.