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As part of the Gaganyaan human space mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing for the first Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1) to demonstrate the crew escape system.
According to the space agency, unmanned flight tests for the Gaganyaan mission will begin soon.
“ISRO said, ‘We are currently preparing for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1), which will demonstrate the performance of the Crew Escape System.'”
The first development flight Test Vehicle (TV-D1) is in the final stages of preparation.
The Test Vehicle is a single-stage liquid rocket developed for this abort mission.
“The payloads consist of the Crew Module (CM) and Crew Escape Systems (CES) with their fast-acting solid motors, along with CM fairing (CMF) and Interface Adapters,” ISRO said.
This flight will simulate the abort condition during the ascent trajectory corresponding to a Mach number of 1.2 encountered in the Gaganyaan mission.
ISRO stated that the Crew Escape System, along with the Crew Module, will separate from the Test Vehicle at an altitude of about 17 km.
ISRO said, ‘Subsequently, the abort sequence will autonomously execute, commencing with the separation of CES (Crew Escape System) and deploying a series of parachutes, finally culminating in the safe touchdown of CM (Crew Module) in the sea, about 10 km from the coast of Sriharikota.
In the Gaganyaan mission, the astronauts will inhabit a pressurized earthlike atmosphere in the Crew Module.
It is in various phases of development.
They have finished integration and testing on the unpressurized version of the Crew Module for the TV-D1. It is now ready to be sent to the launch facility.
This unpressurised Crew Module variant must have the same overall size and mass as the original Gaganyaan Crew Module and house all of the systems for deceleration and recovery.
It comes with a full set of parachutes, recovery aids, actuation systems, and pyros.
The avionics systems in the Crew Module operate in a dual redundant mode for navigation, sequencing, telemetry, instrumentation, and power.
ISRO states that they have heavily instrumented the Crew Module on this mission to record flight data for evaluating the performance of various systems.
An Indian Navy specialized vessel and diving squad will recover it after it lands in the Bay of Bengal.
After integrating, ISRO’s facility in Bengaluru conducted several electrical tests on the Crew Module, including an acoustic test. Later, they delivered it to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on August 13.
They will subject it to vibration tests and perform pre-integration with the Crew Escape System at Sriharikota before finalizing its integration with the Test Vehicle at the Launch Pad.
The Test Vehicle mission with the Crew Module stands as a pivotal milestone in the Gaganyaan program, signifying an almost-complete system for a flight test. Consequently, a successful outcome in this test flight will pave the way for subsequent qualification tests and unmanned missions. Ultimately, this progression will culminate in India’s inaugural Gaganyaan mission featuring astronauts.
Source:IANS
