Gaganyaan Mission Test Flight: Successful launch after anomaly fixed, says a delighted S. Somanath

Gaganyaan mission TV-D1 test flight successfully launched after an initial anomaly was fixed. Crew escape system and other critical technologies demonstrated all fwatures as deploying, marking a major milestone in ISRO's programme.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath expressed happiness over the successful launch of Gaganyaan Test flight. (ISRO)

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched its Gaganyaan mission TV-D1 test flight on Saturday after an initial anomaly halted the launch. The Test Vehicle carrying payloads related to the Gaganyaan human space flight programme fired again at 10 am on Saturday after ISRO engineers were able to fix the glitch.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath expressed happiness over the successful launch, saying, "I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the Gaganyaan TV-D1 mission."

The purpose of the Gaganyaan mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system for the program. The test vehicle went up to a Mach number slightly above the speed of sound and initiated an abort condition for the crew escape system to function. The crew escape system successfully took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations, including the touch-down at the sea, were also successful.

Somanath explained that the initial delay in the launch was due to a monitoring anomaly in the system. However, the anomaly was quickly identified and corrected, allowing the launch to proceed.

TV D1 test flight mission director S Sivakumar said, "This is like a never before attempt. It is like a bouquet of three experiments put together. We have now seen the characteristics of all three systems with what we wanted to test through this experiment or this mission. The test vehicle, the crew escape system, the crew module everything, we have perfectly demonstrated in the first attempt... All the systems performed well... We had been at penance for the last 3 to 4 years and the D day was today... We are very happy to be able to do it on the very first attempt."

The successful launch of the Gaganyaan TV-D1 mission is a major milestone in India's human spaceflight programme. The mission has demonstrated the capabilities of the crew escape system and other critical technologies that will be used in the Gaganyaan spacecraft.