The test vehicle with crew safety-related payloads connected to the ambitious Gaganyaan human space flight mission lifted off successfully from Sriharikota on Saturday. The brief test flight sequence launched the crew escape system and crew module at an altitude of 17 km followed by a safe touchdown in the sea, about 10 km from Sriharikota on India’s eastern coast.

“I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the TV-D1 Mission,” Isro chief S Somanath said soon after the splash.

“The purpose of this mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system for the Gaganyaan programme through a test vehicle demonstration in which the vehicle went up to a Mach number, which is slightly above the speed of sound and initiated an abort condition for the crew escape system to function,” he said.

“The crew escape system took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations including the touch-down at the sea have been very well accomplished. and we have a confirmation of the data for all of this,” he added.

The crew module would later be retrieved by the Navy from the Bay of Bengal.

The aim of the test flight was to demonstrate and evaluate the sub-systems of the test vehicle, crew escape systems including various separation systems, to conduct crew module characteristics and demonstration of deceleration systems at higher altitudes and their recovery.

Test flight earlier aborted due to anomaly

The launch was earlier aborted and rescheduled following an anomaly encountered seconds before the planned lift-off at 8.45am.

Explaining the reason for holding the launch, the Isro chairman said, “After going through the nominal lift-off process, there was a hold issued by the ground computer, which is called the automatic launch sequence computer, that detected a non-conformance for allowing the engine to continue the thrusting to go further. This happened due to a monitoring anomaly in the system, which is why we could identify it very fast and correct it.”

Gaganyaan, India’s first human spaceflight mission, envisages to demonstrate human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an orbit of 400km for a three-day mission and bringing them back safely. The mission has been expected to launch from the country’s main spaceport in Sriharikota before 2024, although a schedule has not been announced.