Mission Gaganyaan: ISRO Shares First Pics Of Craft Which Is Set To Take Humans To Space

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday shared the first images of the Gaganyaan spacecraft which will take humans to space in December 2024. The space agency also said it will commence unmanned flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission.

“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, ” the space agency said in an X (formerly Twitter) post.

The Gaganyaan Mission encompasses taking a crew of two to three members to a circular orbit of about 400 km around the Earth for a 1-3-day-long mission and bringing them back by landing in a designated location in the Indian sea waters.

“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,” ISRO added.

The agency said in a release 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 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 added.

ISRO stated that the Crew Escape System with Crew Module will be separated from the Test Vehicle at an altitude of about 17 km.