Republic Day 2026 celebrated on January 26 brought India's space ambitions into sharp national focus, as Google honoured the occasion with a special Doodle highlighting ISRO's landmark missions — Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1, and the forthcoming Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme. Vigyan Prasar and ISRO jointly released Republic Day editions spotlighting the journey of Indian space science from INSAT to the edge of human spaceflight.

Gaganyaan, India's first crewed orbital mission, is progressing steadily. ISRO has completed over 8,000 ground tests across its propulsion, crew module, and life support systems. The first uncrewed flight test (G1) is scheduled for 2026, with the first crewed mission targeted in 2027-28. Four Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots — Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Angad Pratap, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla — have been selected as Gaganyaan astronauts and have undergone training in Russia at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and in India at the Astronaut Training Facility (ATF), Bengaluru.

The Republic Day spotlight also covered Chandrayaan-3, which in August 2023 made India the fourth nation to soft-land on the Moon and the first to land near the lunar south pole. Pragyan rover confirmed the presence of sulphur, oxygen, and other elements in lunar soil. Aditya-L1, launched in September 2023, reached the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 1 (L1) in January 2024, becoming India's first dedicated solar observatory.

ISRO's missions exemplify India's growing capability in deep-space exploration and human spaceflight. The Gaganyaan programme, with a revised budget provision of ₹20,193 crore, aims to demonstrate India's ability to send humans to low Earth orbit (LEO) at 400 km altitude for a three-day mission before splashing down in the Bay of Bengal.