The test flight for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission was launched after a brief anomaly with the engine

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) successfully launched the first of a series of test flights on Saturday in preparation for the ambitious human spaceflight mission – Gaganyaan – scheduled for 2025.

The Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission 1 was scheduled to lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The launch was initially put on hold after the trouble with engine ignition was discovered. 

“Engine ignition has not happened… we need to find out what went wrong. The vehicle is safe, we need to look at what happened... will correct it and schedule launch soon,” ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said. 

The ISRO identified the cause and successfully conducted the test at 10am.

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The mission is primarily aimed at testing the efficacy of the crew escape system on the Gaganyaan mission’s crew module, which will allow those aboard to exit the spacecraft if the mission is aborted. 

“Test Vehicle mission with this CM [crew module] is a significant milestone for the overall Gaganyaan programme as a near-complete system is integrated for a flight test. 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 ISRO said in a statement earlier this month.   

Through the Gaganyaan mission, which will cost the country around 90 billion Indian rupees ($1 billion), India plans to demonstrate its human spaceflight capability by taking a crewed spacecraft to an altitude of 400km above the Earth for four days to a week. It will then splash down in the Indian Ocean.  

For the mission, the ISRO will use the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 rocket which was earlier used for India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon. If the Gaganyaan mission is successful, India will become the fourth country after the US, USSR, and China to launch a crewed spacecraft on its own. 

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Source: RT - Daily news