India conducts important test flights prior to astronauts space mission

The space agency of India will soon start important tests before sending astronauts into space in 2025.

The Gaganyaan spacecraft will be launched on Saturday at 08:00 in Sriharikota.

The test will show if the crew can safely get out of the rocket if it doesn’t work correctly.

If it works, it will make it possible for other missions without people, including sending a robot into space next year.

We will only send a mission with three astronauts into low-Earth orbit after we finish all these tests. The government said it will probably happen in 2025.

The Gaganyaan project, which means “craft or vehicle to the sky” in Sanskrit, was created at a cost of 90 billion rupees ($1 billion; £897 million). The goal is to launch the astronauts into space 400km above Earth and bring them back safely after three days. If India is successful, it will be the fourth country to send a person into space, following the Soviet Union, the US, and China.

Before that, the space agency Isro has to show that the capsule carrying humans can come back home safely. Saturday’s flight, known as Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (or TV-D1) by Isro, will try to do that.

The head of ISRO, S Somanath, has said that they will be testing the spaceship’s “escape system for the crew” which is a very important part of the spaceship.

Mr Somanath said that if something goes wrong with the rocket, we can make sure the crew stays safe by moving them at least 2km (1. 2 miles) away from the rocket that’s exploding.

“After the rocket goes up in the air, when it reaches a height of 12km to 16km, we will activate the safety system and separate the crew escape system from it,” he explained.

According to the Isro website, some parachutes will be used to help the module land safely in the waters of Bay of Bengal, about 10km away from the Sriharikota coast.

The Indian navy will be nearby with a ship and a group of divers. They will retrieve the module and bring it back to land safely.

The space agency says that the “short duration” test will take about nine minutes.
The craft has been equipped with cameras and instruments that will collect information and pictures. Isro claims that this data will be useful for future tests and the final Gaganyaan mission.

If the test on Saturday goes well, Isro will then send a robot that looks like a human in a spacecraft called Gaganyaan next year, according to junior minister for science Jitendra Singh. Isro introduced Vyommitra, a female humanoid, in 2019. The word “Vyommitra” means “space friend” in Sanskrit.

The agency also showed pictures of Indian air force pilots who were selected to be part of the crew. They mentioned that the pilots were going through a lot of physical exercises, lab tests, X-rays, medical tests, and assessments of their mindset.

Isro recently shared pictures of their rocket on a social media platform called X. They also shared a picture that shows the path the rocket will take from its launch to when it lands in the ocean.

Saturday’s upcoming test has gotten a lot of attention in India, even though it’s happening pretty late compared to when astronauts from the Soviet Union and the US started going to the low Earth orbit in 1961. In October 2003, China became the third country to go to space. They sent a mission that lasted 21 hours and circled the Earth 14 times. The US and China have space stations in orbit around Earth that are fully working.

In 1984, an astronaut from India named Rakesh Sharma went to space. He spent 21 days and 40 minutes on a Russian spacecraft.

But people are interested in Isro’s planned test on Saturday because it’s happening soon after India made a historic achievement by being the first country to land near the Moon’s south pole on 23 August 2023.

A few weeks later, India sent its first observation mission to the Sun, called Aditya-L1. According to India’s space agency, it will travel a distance of 1. 5 million km (932,000 miles) from Earth, which is about 1% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is expected to reach its intended destination in mid-January.

This week, India announced big goals for space. They plan to build a space station by 2035 and send one of their own astronauts to the Moon by 2040.