The Gaganyaan test vehicle lifts off from Sriharikota. Credit: ISRO

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched an empty crew module from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota today to test the capsule’s emergency escape system and prepare for a crewed mission.

The short flight, Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1, tested the capacity of the system to protect astronauts in case of an emergency or a critical challenge, including a launch failure. It also measured deceleration and recovery at higher altitude.

“It is a bouquet of three experiments — we have now tested the vehicle, the crew escape system and the crew module," Mission director S Sivakumar said.

When launched, Gaganyaan (Sanskrit for celestial vehicle) will be India’s first space flight carrying humans. ISRO will conduct a few more test flights to validate safety before the mission with crew on board.

Setting the stage

The Gaganyaan mission will launch a crew to a near-Earth orbit of 400 km and bring them.

The test flight is a single-stage liquid rocket with two payloads – a crew module and a crew escape system (CES). The crew escape system with crew module was separated from the test vehicle at an altitude of about 17 km. The CES separated and deployed a series of parachutes before the crew module touched down in the Bay of Bengal, about 10 km from the coast of Sriharikota.

“Human spaceflight capabilities continue to be a technological feat. This will be a reflection on the prowess of the Indian space programme,” said Tomas Hrozensky senior researcher at European Space Policy Institute.

Simeon Barber, lunar scientist at The Open University, in the United Kingdom, said it was exciting to see India take this important step towards crewed missions.

“It will be necessary to take a strategic approach, ensuring that the team slowly builds a reliable system that is safe to carry its human cargo,” Barber told Nature India.

Human spaceflight is harder than robotic missions and comparatively much more expensive, said Amitabha Ghosh, a contributor to NASA’s Rover Mission to Mars and a part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. “But nothing beats the experience of a human astronaut,” he told Nature India.

A human mission is the only missing link in ISRO’s space programme and Gaganyaan would fill this gap, said Mylswamy Annadurai, director of India’s first Moon mission.