The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully completed the first crucial test, TV-D1 mission, of Ganganyaan crew module- a mission whose successful culmination will put India amongst the few luminary countries to launch a crewed spacecraft.
The launch, which was earlier scheduled for 8 am, was rescheduled to 8:30 am before being scrubbed again, as an anomaly was observed. Here’s everything that conspired since morning.
ISRO had earlier informed that the Test Flight will take off at 8 am but rescheduled it to 8:30 owing to bad weather. But just 5 seconds before the single-stage liquid propelled rocket was set to lift off, a ‘HOLD’ sign was flashed.
ISRO Chief S Somanath, while addressing the media from the mission centre, said “The liftoff attempt could not happen today. It was initially scheduled at 8 am. It was postponed to 8:45 am due to the weather situation. We had a very smooth automatic launch sequence leading up to the command to liftoff. But engine liftoff did not happen. We have to find out what went wrong. The vehicle is safe. We will come back soon after analysing what triggered the hold on the vehicle. The ground checkout computer withheld the launch after observing an anomaly,”
At 9:30 am, ISRO informed that the reason for the launch hold has been identified and corrected, and rescheduled the launch to 10:00 am.
This time, the Gaganyaan test Vehicle-D1 mission lifted off successfully as the crew escape system separated the crew module from the launch vehicle. The crew module descended through parachutes.
After the successful launch, Mr Somanath said, “There was a monitoring anomaly in the system. We could identify and rectify it very fast. 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”
“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.
(Published 21 October 2023, 09:53 IST)