ISRO Mission: The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) said on Friday (October 20) that the countdown has started for an unmanned flight test, moving towards the ambitious mission of sending Indian astronauts to space.
ISRO said that the single-stage liquid propulsion rocket equipped with the ‘crew module’ (which will carry the astronauts) and the crew rescue system will be launched from the first launch pad of Sriharikota Space Center at 8 am on Saturday (October 21).
The objective of the test spacecraft mission is to study the safety parameters of the crew module and crew rescue system to eventually return Indian astronauts to Earth under the Gaganyaan mission.
What is the goal of Gaganyaan mission?
The Gaganyaan mission aims to send humans into low Earth orbit at an altitude of 400 kilometers in a 3-day mission in 2025 and bring them back to Earth safely.
ISRO will attempt a successful launch of its Test Vehicle – Demonstration (TV-D1), a single-stage liquid propulsion rocket, on Saturday. The test vehicle mission with this crew module is an important milestone for the overall Gaganyaan program as almost the entire system has been integrated for the test on Saturday.
ISRO informed on its website on Friday, “The countdown for the launch of TV-D1- test flight at 8 am on October 21 has started at 7 pm on Friday.”
‘The first Gaganyaan program will start’
ISRO said that the success of this test flight will lay the groundwork for the remaining tests and unmanned missions, which will begin the first Gaganyaan programme.
The ‘crew module’ is the payload in the rocket and is a habitable space for astronauts in space with an Earth-like environment. It consists of a pressurized metallic ‘inner structure’ and an unpressurized ‘outer structure’ with thermal protection systems.
The performance of the system installed in the ‘Crew Module’ will be assessed
During the first test flight on Saturday, data will be obtained to assess the performance of various systems in the ‘Crew Module’ which will help scientists get information about the performance of the vehicle.
Crew module will be launched at a height of 17 km
The entire test flight program on Saturday is expected to be brief as the ‘Test Vehicle Abort Mission’ (TV-D1) will launch the crew escape system (crew escape system) and crew module at an altitude of 17 km, about 10 km from Sriharikota. Hope to land safely in the sea. Later they will be searched from the Bay of Bengal through the Navy.
Also read: Gaganyaan launch in 2025, man on the moon by 2040… What is ISRO’s plan for 27 years ahead?