The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has started preparations for unmanned flight tests as part of the Gaganyaan mission, the agency said on Saturday. A post on the ISRO’s official handle on social media platform X read, “Mission Gaganyaan: ISRO to commence unmanned flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission. Preparations for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1), which demonstrates the performance of the Crew Escape System, are underway.”
According to ISRO, the success of this test flight will set the stage for the remaining qualification tests and unmanned missions, leading to the first Gaganyaan mission with Indian Astronauts. The agency in a release regarding the First Crew Module for Gaganyaan test flight said that the first development flight Test Vehicle (TV-D1) is in the final stages of preparation.
“The Test Vehicle is a single-stage liquid rocket developed for this abort mission. The payloads consist of the Crew Module (CM) and Crew Escape Systems (CES) with their fast-acting solid motors, along with CM fairing (CMF) and Interface Adapters. This flight will simulate the abort condition during the ascent trajectory corresponding to a Mach number of 1.2 encountered in the Gaganyaan mission,” the release said.
The Crew Module after integration underwent various electrical testing, at ISRO’s facility in Bengaluru, including an acoustic test and was dispatched to SDSC-SHAR on August 13, the release added.
