While the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Indian Air Force are engaged in a tug-of-war over who should send the astronaut on India’s proposed manned mission into space in 2015, question marks are being raised over the mission itself with the government still to give its formal approval to it.

The proposal for a manned space mission, India’s first, has been lying with the Centre for over a year now and a top government source told The Indian Express that it was unlikely to be approved anytime soon, mainly because an expenditure of around Rs 15,000 crore was involved. “The mission is unfortunately not on the priority list of the government as of now. My own feeling is that we will have to wait for the economic situation in the country to improve further for the government to be able to take a decision on such a large expenditure,” the source said.

The delay in the approval means that the preparations for the mission have been held up. The mission will almost certainly miss its 2015 schedule. “We had asked for the approval in 2008. It’s been more than a year since and the approval has yet not come. It means that the mission would have to be pushed back accordingly,” said S Satish, director of press and public relations at ISRO. Satish said ISRO would require six to seven years to prepare for a challenging and complicated mission like this. “The space capsule has to be built. The training facility for the astronauts will have to be set up. All this will take time,” he said.

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