ISRO Chairman S. Somanath addresses the 50th Convention of the All India Management Association at the Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi, September 27, 2023.
| Photo Credit: ANI

In a crucial step in India’s ambitious programme to lift its astronauts into space, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will test its crew escape system (CES) on October 21, 2023. The flight, from Sriharikota, will test if the CES can protect the astronauts should the launch vehicle malfunction. ISRO has designated this mission TV-D1.

According to an ISRO statement, the test will begin between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. When the launch vehicle – fit with the crew module and the CES – reaches a velocity of 1.2 Mach and an altitude of 17 km, an abort command will be issued. The module with the CES will separate from the rocket and deploy a series of parachutes, and eventually splash down in the Bay of Bengal, where Navy personnel will recover it. The whole sequence will be uncrewed.

In the ultimate mission that will hoist the astronauts into a low-earth orbit in 2024 or 2025, the rocket will be the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3). But that on October 21 will be a single-stage rocket powered by liquid propellants. It was purpose-built for the TV-D1 mission and wheeled to the launch pad on October 15.

ISRO Chairman S. Somanath spoke to T.S. Subramanian for The Hindu about this test, the crew module, and preparations for the human spaceflight programme, a.k.a. ‘Gaganyaan‘. Excerpts from the interview follow:

You will be soon testing the crew escape system of the Gaganyaan project, which will ultimately take the Indian astronauts into space. Have you made the LVM-3 rocket more powerful to carry the big crew module?

Gaganyaan has many, many elements [and] components. The rocket is one part of it. The rocket LVM-3, which will take the crew to orbit, is being strengthened. The process of strengthening it is already completed. That is called the ‘human rating’ of the vehicle. It is already over. All systems and engines have been tested and confirmed. So our rocket – human-rated – is virtually completed.

There is another element called the crew module and the crew escape system. The new crew module is under development. It is being tested. There is no capability in India to manufacture it. We have to get it from outside. That work is currently going on.

We wanted a lot of technology to come from outside, from Russia, Europe, and America. But many did not come. We only got some items. That is going to take time. So we have to develop systems such as environmental control and life support systems. We call it ‘ECLSS’. That has to be developed internally. We have developed its engineering model. This is basically for controlling the temperature, oxygen, wastage process, vibration, fire hazards, and so many [other] things.

We have to make a crew escape system. That is, in the case of any damage to the rocket, the crew will [have to] be taken away from the rocket and saved.

Finally, there is a system called Integrated Vehicle Health Management System, or IVHMS, which has intelligence. It will sense an imminent failure and take abort action. It will autonomously decide. This system is under development. These are new things. We have to test all of them over a period of time.

Hundreds of tests are planned: helicopter-based tests, test-vehicle-based tests, rocket-based tests, abort tests, unmanned [tests], robotic missions, and so on. All these will be done. For the next one year to a year and a half, this will be our programme. Every day, there is some test happening. Every subsystem and component goes through hundreds of tests. When a major test happens, the press will know about it.

The test vehicle test will happen in October [i.e. October 21]. It will be an abort test. The launch vehicle will take the unmanned crew module up to a height of 17 km. Then we will say the mission is ‘aborted’. It will [have to] be saved using the crew escape system. It will bring back the module to the sea and we will collect it.

In the real mission, will three Indian astronauts go in the crew module to low-earth orbit?

Finally how many people will go, we will decide later. Not now. We don’t have to send three… We can also send one in the first mission. There is no hurry to send three. We can send one by one. Ultimately, we can send even 10 astronauts. Why limit to three? That is not a measure of anything. If you are able to send a human being into space, that is it.

It depends on our confidence at that point of time… Only when we are very sure of ourselves, we will send human beings into space. Otherwise, we will not do that. In my opinion, it will take more time than we really thought of. We are not worried about it. What we are worried about is that we should do it right the first time.

The schedule is secondary here. Even if I send a person tomorrow, I am not going to achieve anything other than claim that I have sent this person. The capability development is most important. Technology development is most important. Some claims I made last year are not important. I am focusing on capability development.

S. Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
| Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar K

ISRO will conduct three more test vehicle missions under the ambitious Gaganyaan programme after the maiden TV-D1 test flight, which is scheduled on October 21, the space agency’s chairman S. Somanath said on October 14.

The Gaganyaan project envisages a demonstration of the human spaceflight capability by launching a human crew to an orbit of 400 km and bringing them safely back to earth by landing in Indian sea waters.

The test vehicle development flight (TV-D1) will be conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh to test the crew module that is scheduled to house Indian astronauts during the human spaceflight late next year.

“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,” Mr. Somanath, who is also the secretary, Department of Space, told reporters in Madurai. He was here to participate in a couple of events in Rameswaram.

Also read | ISRO to conduct first test flight of Gaganyaan mission on October 21

TV-D1 involves launching the crew module to outer space, bringing it back to earth and recovering it after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal.

Recently, the Union Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency would carry out the first of several test flights ahead of the Gaganyaan maiden mission on October 21 at Sriharikota.

To a query about the Aditya-L1 programme, the maiden solar mission undertaken by ISRO, Mr. Somanath expressed hope that the spacecraft will reach the Lagrange point (L1) in the middle of January 2024.

“We will insert it in the L1 point and undertake various scientific experiments from that point,” he said.

Last week, ISRO scientists performed a trajectory correction manoeuvre on the Aditya L1 spacecraft. The spacecraft was launched by a PSLV-C57 rocket on September 2.

On the setting up of another launch pad in Kulasekarapattinam in Tuticorin district, he said ISRO would be able to avail several benefits from that launch pad as it would be useful for launching smaller rockets and to serve private players.

“…right now bigger rockets like PSLV need to take a turn towards the southward direction above Sri Lanka since the launch pad is in the east (in Sriharikota). Whereas in Kulasekarapattinam, we don’t need to make rockets to make that turn as they will be already facing southward,” he said.

“Smaller Satellite Launch Vehicles and private players will be able to use that launch pad (in Kulasekarapattinam). Right now, the land is in the acquisition stage. It will take two years for completion,” Mr. Somanath said.

For launching its Aditya-L1 mission on September 2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be using a variant of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which also launched India’s first missions to the moon and Mars.

With the PSLV-C57/Aditya-L1 mission, India’s first solar mission, the PSLV-XL variant will mark its 25th flight.

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Aditya-L1, the primary space-based Indian observatory to check the Solar, is getting able for the origination. Record
| Picture Credit score: ANI

Aditya-L1, first space-based Indian observatory to check the solar, can be introduced on September 2, the Indian Area Analysis Organisation (ISRO) introduced on Monday

“The launch of Aditya-L1, the first space-based Indian observatory to study the sun, is scheduled for September 2, 2023, at 11:50 Hrs. IST from Sriharikota,” ISRO posted on X, previously Twitter

Consistent with ISRO, the spacecraft can be positioned in a halo orbit across the Lagrange level 1 (L1) of the sun-earth gadget, which is set 1.5 million km from the earth. It’s anticipated to hurry greater than 120 days for the spacecraft to achieve the L1.

“A satellite placed in the halo orbit around the L1 point has the major advantage of continuously viewing the sun without any occultation/eclipses. This will provide a greater advantage of observing the solar activities and its effect on space weather in real time. The spacecraft carries seven payloads to observe the photosphere, chromosphere and the outermost layers of the sun (the corona) using electromagnetic and particle and magnetic field detectors. Using the special vantage point L1, four payloads directly view the sun and the remaining three payloads carry out in-situ studies of particles and fields at the Lagrange point L1, thus providing important scientific studies of the propagatory effect of solar dynamics in the interplanetary medium,” states the Aditya L1 challenge profile.

The fits of Aditya L1 payloads are anticipated to grant essentially the most an important data to know the condition of coronal heating, coronal collection ejection, pre-flare and flare actions and their traits, dynamics of area climate, propagation of debris and disciplines and so on.

The seven payloads boarded the satellite tv for pc are Perceptible Emission Sequence Coronagraph, Sun Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope , Sun Low Power X-ray Spectrometer , Prime Power L1 Orbiting X-ray Spectrometer , Aditya Sun air Particle Experiment, Plasma Analyser Bundle For Aditya ) and Complex Tri-axial Prime Solution Virtual Magnetometers.