On Saturday morning, India tested a crucial maneuver for the planned Gaganyaan mission, taking a "step closer" to its ambitious aim to carry astronauts into space. The second attempt at 10 a.m. local time from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh to launch the test mission for crew escape system abort demonstration (TV-D1) was successful. The first try, at 8:45 a.m., had failed.
In a live broadcast from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, the head of the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro), S Somanath, remarked, "I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the TV-D1 mission." The test vehicle's speed of Mach 1.2 was just slightly higher than the speed of sound, and its primary purpose was to demonstrate the Gaganyaan program's crew escape system.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that "with today's launch, India is one giant leap closer to bringing its first human space flight program, Gaganyaan," to fruition. "My best wishes to our scientists at Isro," added the scientist.
If the Gaganyaan programme in India is successful in 2025, then India will join the United States, Russia, and China as the fourth country to launch a manned spaceflight mission. India's space program has set ambitious goals: by 2035, they hope to have an Indian Space Station up and running, and by 2040, they plan to send the first Indian to the Moon. This optimism stems from the success of recent missions like India's third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 and the first space-based solar observatory Aditya L-1.
The successful trip on Saturday was described by India's minister of state for space, Jitendra Singh, as a "countdown" to the country's manned spacecraft mission, Gaganyaan.
Singh noted that "Isro is having success after success," with the Gaganyaan being the next major accomplishment.
Somanath, head of Isro, revealed that the crew escape mechanism detached the crew module from the vehicle before the parachutes deployed and the ship splashed down in the ocean at the necessary speed.
"This has been very well accomplished and we have got confirmation of data for all of this," he commented. The crew module was retrieved from the ocean and brought into port by the ship. "Till now, as per the data, everything has performed nominally."
"The Eastern Naval Command units of the Indian Navy recovered the crew module - path paved by extensive planning, training of Naval divers, formulation of standard operating procedures and joint communication by combined teams of Indian Navy and Isro," a representative for the Indian Navy said.
The launch had been postponed twice due to weather, first from 8 am to 8.30 am and then again 15 minutes later. A "hold" message suddenly appeared on the screens just four seconds before the single-stage liquid-propelled rocket was scheduled to blast off into the sky.
Somnath added, "after going through the nominal lift-off process there was a hold issued by the automatic launch sequence computer which detected a non-conformance for allowing the engine to continue with the thrusting." This was the reason for the launch hold at 8.45 a.m.
The system monitoring anomaly is to blame for this occurrence. "We could identify it fast and correct it," he said. Somanath stated at the press conference
Somanath added, "This is a big training for the entire team to prepare for the Gaganyaan programme," and he vowed to report back with additional mission data and analysis. He also added that the space agency would be sending back an unmanned Gaganyaan vehicle sometime in the first quarter of the next year.
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