Mission Gaganyaan: ISRO to conduct TV-D1 test flight on Oct 21

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Monday announced that it will conduct the first unmanned test of Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1) for the Gaganyaan Mission on October 21 from satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

The flight test is scheduled between 07.00 am and 09.00 am IST, the space agency said.

Earlier on October 7, ISRO announced that it will be commencing unmanned flight tests for its next space mission, Gaganyaan.



The test involves launching the module to outer space, bringing it back to earth and recovering it after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal. The Navy has already started mock operations to recover the module, Singh said at a felicitation programme of the ISRO engineers involved in the Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L-1 missions.

The Minister for Science and Technology Dr Jitendra Singh had announced the date earlier as well.

According to ISRO officials, the Gaganyaan project would demonstrate India's capability of taking a crew of two to three members to a circular orbit of about 400 km around the earth for a one-to-three days mission and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in a designated location in Indian sea waters. The LVM3 rocket, the heavy lift launcher of ISRO, is identified as the launch vehicle for the Gaganyaan mission. It consists of solid stage, liquid stage and cryogenic stage.