ISRO official: Gaganyaan mission's first test flight will occur in February of next year.
32728-Oct-2022
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in preparation for India's first human space mission, will launch a series of test flights in February of next year, according to a high-ranking official who made the announcement here on Thursday.
In order to test the crew module, which will carry astronauts into orbit for three days as part of the Gaganyaan human space flight mission, the space agency also plans to deploy the heavy-lift Chinook helicopter and the C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft, according to R Umamaheshwaran, Director of ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre.
He told the India Space Congress that the Environment Control System, which will give astronauts a comfortable place to live in the crew service module while they are orbiting the planet, had been designed by ISRO experts.
ISRO wants to carry out at least 17 various experiments before launching an unmanned spacecraft in December of the following year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced the Gaganyaan Mission in his Freedom Day speech in 2018, with the aim of completing it by 2022, when the country would have achieved 75 years of independence from colonial rule.
However, due to a series of delays brought on by the Covid outbreak, it is now projected that the first Indian astronauts will launch on their first space trip by 2024 end or the 2025 beginning. Umamaheshwaran claimed that because the astronauts had to be comfortable during the re-entry phase, when the outside temperature may approach 2000 degrees Celsius, it was challenging to construct the crew module and environment control system.
According to Umamaheshwaran, the environment control system is an essential part of the project since it ensures that the crew module has comfortable living circumstances. 'We are now creating because we have the ability to do so; it just takes a little bit of time. It's time to show that the suggested solution is sufficiently secure now that the design work is finished. the purpose of the entire endeavour '.