On 9 August 2007, the then Chairman of the ISRO, G. Madhavan Nair, indicated the agency is "seriously considering" the creation of the Human Spaceflight Programme. He further indicated that within a year ISRO would report on its development of new space capsule technologies. Development of a fully autonomous orbital vehicle to carry a two-member crew into low-Earth orbit (LEO) began a few months after that when the government allocated for pre-project initiatives for 2007 through 2008. A crewed orbital spaceflight would require about and a period of seven years for development. The Planning Commission estimated that a budget of was required for initial work during 2007–2012 for the crewed spaceflight. In February 2009, the Government of India authorized the human space flight programme, but fell short of fully funding it or creating the programme.