ISRO Chief Says India Will Have Four Operational Launch Pads by 2029, With the First Uncrewed Gaganyaan Test Due Within Two Months

India's launch infrastructure has been a quiet bottleneck for years. Every orbital rocket the country flies — PSLV, GSLV, LVM3 and the small SSLV — has left from the same island: Sriharikota, on the Andhra Pradesh coast, which today operates two launch pads. On 24 October 2026, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan set out a timeline for changing that, saying India expects to have four operational launch pads by 2029.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony at Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research in Chennai, Narayanan tied the expansion to a growing role for private industry and gave a fresh near-term date for the human spaceflight programme: the first uncrewed Gaganyaan test, he said, is planned within the next two months.

What was said

According to reports of the speech, the four-pad figure includes two new facilities that are already under way:

• A third launch pad at Sriharikota, approved by the Union Cabinet in January 2025 at a cost of ₹3,984.86 crore. It is designed to serve the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) as well as LVM3, India's current heavy-lift rocket.
• The SSLV launch complex at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu's Thoothukudi district, a roughly 2,000-acre site dedicated to the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle. The first rocket from the complex is expected in 2027.

With Sriharikota's two existing pads, that arithmetic reaches four. Some reports noted that Narayanan did not elaborate in detail on each of the pads, and the dates he gave are stated plans rather than confirmed schedules.

Narayanan also repeated a message he has delivered several times this year as ISRO hands more work to industry: the space agency will not be privatised, though some operations will be handled by the private sector on a commercial basis. ISRO, he said, will continue to support start-ups and companies entering the sector.

Why more pads matter

A launch pad is not just a slab of concrete. Each one comes with vehicle assembly buildings, propellant storage and servicing, mobile launch pedestals, tracking and telemetry links, and range-safety systems. Turnaround time between launches from a single pad — the days needed to clear, refurbish and re-stack — puts a hard ceiling on how often a country can fly.

That ceiling is beginning to bite. ISRO is preparing for a crewed programme, a planned Bharatiya Antariksh Station, a lunar sample-return mission and a steady stream of navigation and Earth-observation satellites. At the same time, private launch companies — Skyroot Aerospace, whose Vikram-1 reached orbit in July 2026, and Agnikul Cosmos among them — need range time for their own vehicles.

The two new sites address different problems:

• Sriharikota's third pad is about capacity at the heavy end. NGLV is intended as ISRO's next workhorse with a reusable first stage, and a dedicated pad means it will not have to compete for slots with LVM3 or crewed missions.
• Kulasekarapattinam is about geography and the small-launch market. Rockets launched from Sriharikota towards polar and sun-synchronous orbits must perform a manoeuvre to avoid flying over Sri Lanka, which costs payload capacity. Launching from India's southern tip allows a more direct southward trajectory — a significant gain for a small rocket like SSLV, whose commercial appeal depends on getting the most mass to orbit per launch.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Kulasekarapattinam complex in February 2024. Its planned facilities include integration buildings, launch pads, rail-track systems for moving vehicles, and telemetry, tracking and command systems. The complex is also expected to serve private small-launch operators, which IN-SPACe has been preparing for through an expression-of-interest process.

Gaganyaan: three uncrewed flights first

The near-term news in Narayanan's remarks concerns Gaganyaan. "We plan to conduct three uncrewed tests before the Gaganyaan mission," he said, according to reports. The flights will test the crew escape system; environmental control and safety systems, including the maintenance of pressure, temperature, relative humidity and oxygen and carbon dioxide levels inside the crew module; and the systems that slow the module for return. "Only after the successful completion of all three tests will we undertake the Gaganyaan mission," he said.

The timeline has slipped before. Last year ISRO had pointed to a December 2025 date for the first uncrewed flight, G1, and earlier 2026 reports had suggested March. The crewed flight is currently targeted for 2027. A "within two months" window would put G1 around the end of 2026, but it should be read as a target until ISRO announces a launch date.

Narayanan also referred to Chandrayaan-5, a planned lunar mission in collaboration with Japan's space agency JAXA, and to India's plans for returning samples from the Moon.

The bigger picture

India's space ambitions have run ahead of its ground infrastructure. The country wants to sharply increase its share of the global space economy, support a crewed programme and a space station, and give private launch companies room to grow. All of that requires more launch opportunities, and launch opportunities require pads.

Two of the four pads in Narayanan's 2029 target already exist, and two are funded and under construction. Delivering both new sites on time, while also flying Gaganyaan's test campaign, would mark a meaningful shift: from a single, congested spaceport to a network that can support a higher launch cadence and a commercial small-satellite market. Whether the target is met will be clear well before 2029, starting with the first rocket from Kulasekarapattinam, expected in 2027.

Sources

• ThePrint (PTI): ISRO to have four launch pads by 2029, says Narayanan — https://theprint.in/india/isro-to-have-four-launch-pads-by-2029-says-narayanan/3080946/
• Deccan Herald: ISRO to have four functional launch pads by 2029 — https://deccanherald.com/india/isro-to-have-four-launch-pads-by-2029-says-isro-chairman-v-narayanan-4194475
• Business Standard: Isro plans four functional launch pads by 2029, says chairman Narayanan — https://business-standard.com/industry/news/isro-plans-four-functional-launch-pads-by-2029-says-chairman-narayanan-126102500109_1.html
• Siasat: ISRO to have four launch pads by 2029, says Narayanan — https://www.siasat.com/isro-to-have-four-launch-pads-by-2029-says-narayanan-3564077/
• Deccan Chronicle: ISRO To Have Four Functional Launch Pads By 2029 — https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/isro-to-have-four-functional-launch-pads-by-2029-says-chairman-1998657
• Deccan Herald: Union Cabinet approves construction of third launch pad at Sriharikota — https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/story/india%2Funion-cabinet-approves-construction-of-third-launch-pad-at-sriharikota-3358782
• Wikipedia: SSLV Launch Complex — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSLV_Launch_Complex