What is Gaganyaan Mission? Why is its first flight test so significant?

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is slated to conduct the Gaganyaan mission’s first flight test on 21 October. The test flight is slated to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 8 am on Saturday. In a message on social media platform X, the national space agency headquartered, said, “Mission Gaganyaan: The TV-D1 test flight is scheduled for 21 October, 2023 between 7 am and 9 am from SDSC-SHAR, Sriharikota.” “…it will be a short duration mission and the visibility from the launch view gallery will be limited,” ISRO said in a statement. But what is the Gaganyaan mission? And why is the first test flight so significant? What is the Gaganyaan mission? The Gaganyaan project looks to demonstrate India’s ability to send manned space missions.

It aims to send a human crew to a Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) of 400 kilometres and bring them back safely by landing in the Indian Ocean.

The project was announced in 2018 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Republic Day speech from the Red Fort. The Gaganyaan mission was slated to launch in 2022. However, the COVID pandemic and the complexity of the mission led to delays. If successful, it will make India just the fourth nation – after the erstwhile Soviet Union, the United States and China – to carry out manned spaceflights. As per India Today, the Gaganyaan project is important because countries are now looking to conquer the final frontier of space, explore the cosmos and find new resources on the Moon and on other planets. “An indigenous crew mission will put India at the centre of this race, shaping the already changing geopolitics,” the piece added. [caption id=“attachment_13233932” align=“alignnone” width=“750”] The launch of the Test Vehicle Development Flight (TV-D1), will take place at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh[/caption] The ISRO in a statement said, “The prerequisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space, life support system to provide an earth like environment to crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, recovery and rehabilitation of crew.” “Various precursor missions are planned for demonstrating the Technology Preparedness Levels before carrying out the actual Human Space Flight mission. These demonstrator missions include Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT), Pad Abort Test (PAT) and Test Vehicle (TV) flights. Safety and reliability of all systems will be proven in unmanned missions preceding manned mission,” the ISRO website states. Why is this test flight so important?         The test flight is important to put the Crew Module –  which will hold the astronauts in a pressurised Earth-like atmosphere during the Gaganyaan mission – through its paces as well as see how well the abort system works. The Crew Module (CM) for the Gaganyaan mission is under different stages of development. For the TV-D1, the CM is an unpressurised version that has completed its integration and testing.

This unmanned test flight will also serve as a launching pad for other vehicle tests – which will culminate in India’s first manned space mission slated for 2025.

ISRO chairman S Somanath on Saturday told reporters three more test vehicle missions would be launched under the Gaganyaan programme after the TV-D1 test flight. “The first test vehicle flight (of the Gaganyaan mission) will be conducted on October 21. After that, we have planned for three more test missions, D2, D3, D4. We will hold thorough tests during the test flight sequence,” Somanath, who is also the secretary, Department of Space, told reporters in Rameswaram. In short, this mission will test the how the Crew Module performs as well how effectively the Crew Escape System works to save astronauts during an emergency. How will the test flight work? The TV-D1 test flight involves launching the unmanned crew module to outer space, bringing it back to earth and recovering it after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal. According to ISRO, the test vehicle is a single-stage liquid rocket. The payloads comprise

• The Crew Module (CM)
• Crew Escape System (CES)
• CM fairing (CMF)
• Interface Adapters.

The Crew Module will be taken to height of 17 kilometres in low Earth orbit, as per News on Air website. Then, once the module is in mid-air and moving at a Mach speed of 1.2 (1,482 kilometres per hour), the abort system will be tested. As per India Today, the Crew Module will now separate from the Crew Escape System at a height of 16.9 kilometers at a speed of 550 kmph. This will occur around 91 second after launch, The Crew Module will then shift to its coasting phase. Now, a drogue parachute will be released – which will slow down its decent – following which a main parachute will be deployed.

Then, the Crew Escape System will safely touch down in the sea.

“The Crew Escape System with Crew Module will be separated from the Test Vehicle at an altitude of about 17 km. Subsequently, the abort sequence will be executed autonomously commencing with the separation of the CES and deployment of the series of parachutes, finally culminating in the safe touchdown of CM in the sea, about 10 km from the coast of Sriharikota,” ISRO explained. “With its complete set of parachutes, recovery aids actuation systems and pyros (pyrotechnic device used to separate spacecraft from rocket), the avionics systems in CM are in a dual redundant mode configuration for navigation, sequencing, telemetry, instrumentation and power. The CM in this mission is extensively instrumented to capture the flight data for evaluation of the performance of various systems,” it added. [caption id=“attachment_13253982” align=“alignnone” width=“645”] ISRO’s Chairman S Somanath has revealed that India’s space organisation is working on several exploration missions and has several launches lined up for the next few years.[/caption] Space expert Girish Linganna told The Week, “Within the CM, all the components necessary for deceleration and recovery are housed. This includes a comprehensive array of parachutes, Recovery Aids Actuation Systems and pyrotechnic devices. Recovery Aids Actuation Systems are mechanisms that control and deploy different kinds of devices, such as parachutes or flotation equipment, during the spacecraft’s descent phase to ensure safe and controlled landing. The CM is also equipped with an extensive array of instruments to record flight data, allowing for assessment of various system performances." The Crew Module will be recovered after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal using a dedicated vessel and diving team from the Indian Navy. Indian Space Station by 2035, PM tells ISRO Buoyed by the success of the Chandrayaan mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday set ambitious goals for ISRO, asking them to set up an Indian Space Station by 2035 and send the first Indian to the moon by 2040. Modi’s directions came during a briefing by ISRO Chairman S Somanath on the progress of the Gaganyaan mission, which is to have its first demonstration flight of the crew escape system on 21 October, and other initiatives. During the meeting, the Prime Minister outlined the future of India’s space exploration endeavours and urged scientists to work towards interplanetary missions, including a Venus Orbiter Mission and a Mars Lander and also explore the moon in greater detail. “Building on the success of Indian space initiatives, including the recent Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 missions, the Prime Minister directed that India should now aim for new and ambitious goals, including setting up the ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ (Indian space station) by 2035 and sending first Indian to the Moon by 2040,” the statement said.

To realise this vision, the Department of Space will develop a roadmap for Moon exploration, it said.

ISRO’s moon exploration plans will comprise a series of Chandrayaan missions, developing a new rocket – the Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV), building a new launchpad and setting up human-centric Laboratories and associated technologies. The Department of Space presented a comprehensive overview of the Gaganyaan Mission, including various technologies developed so far such as human-rated launch vehicles and system qualification. It was noted that around 20 major tests, including three uncrewed missions of the Human Rated Launch Vehicle (HLVM3) are planned. Prime Minister Modi expressed confidence in India’s capabilities and affirmed the nation’s commitment to scaling new heights in space exploration. Besides Somanath, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister P K Mishra and other officials were present during the meeting. The meeting chaired by the Prime Minister came after India’s successful soft landing near the unexplored south pole of the moon on 23 August. Within 10 days of the lunar landing on September 2, India launched a spacecraft to study the Sun from a place called the Lagrange Point (L1), situated about 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth. The Aditya L-1 mission will study the solar atmosphere, solar magnetic storms, and their impact on the environment around the Earth. With inputs from agencies