Mission accomplished

ISRO’s TV-D1 test flight of Mission Gaganyaan lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Station in Sriharikota on Saturday. (PTI)

“The Crew Escape System took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations of the crew module, the separation of the CES, all the parachutes opening and the touch down at the sea at the required velocity has been very well accomplished,”

By Vijay Karthik SRIHARIKOTA :

OVERCOMING initial hiccups including a monitoring anomaly, ISRO on Saturday successfully launched a test vehicle with payloads related to the country’s ambitious human space flight programme, Gaganyaan. Scientists simulated an abort situation for the Crew Escape System (CES) to carry the Crew Module out of the test vehicle, TV-D1, as they made a splash into the Bay of Bengal with planned precision, setting off jubilation among ISRO scientists at the Mission Control Center. Crew Module (CM) is where the astronauts are contained in a pressurised earth-like atmospheric condition during the Gaganyaan mission. For TV-D1, the CM was an unpressurised version. The Crew Module has been successfully recovered from the sea, ISRO Chairman S Somanath said .

“I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the TV-D1 mission. The purpose of the mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system for the Gaganyaan programme through a test vehicle demonstration in which the vehicle has gone up to a Mach and above, which is the speed of sound and initiated an abort condition for the CES to function,” a beaming ISRO Chairman S Somanath said from the Mission Control Center. Gaganyaan programme aims to send humans into space on a Low Earth Orbit of 400 km for three days and bring them safely back to the Earth. Smiles came back on the faces of ISRO scientists much late on Saturday as weather-related issues first forced a rescheduling of the launch, from the original 8 am to 8.30 am and again 15 minutes later. However, just 4 seconds before the single-stage liquid propelled rocket was set to soar into the skies, a “hold” sign flashed on the screens. “...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. It detected sort of a non-conformance following the engine to continue the thrusting to further go,” Somanath explained.

“This happened due to a monitoring anomaly in the system. So we could identify it very very fast and correct it,” he added. It took some time to refill the gases and once that was completed, the team went through the proper automatic launch sequence which checked the entire health of the vehicle, he said. Earlier, after the initial ‘hold,’ Somanath had said the vehicle was in good health. And finally the mission computer and the ground support computer authorised the launch which allowed the 34.9 metre tall TV-D1 to takeoff. “I am happy our team could understand an anomaly, rectify it and come back as fast. Congratulations to everybody. It is a big training for everybody here to prepare for the Gaganyaan programme...Happy that the launch could happen within the allocated launch window,” the ISRO Chairman said. Post-launch, the announcement of every successful stage of the mission was greeted with cheers by the scientists.