Chief Dr S Somanath on Saturday said that the first test flight for the ‘TV-D1’ (Test Vehicle Development Flight 1), part of the Indian astronaut project Gaganyaan will take place on October 21.
He said that D1 would be followed up with at least three more tests of the same nature. The test vehicle development flight (TV-D1) will be conducted at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh to test the crew module that is scheduled to house Indian astronauts during human spaceflight late next year.
“Test Vehicle-D1 mission is scheduled for October 21. This is the Gaganyaan program. The Gaganyaan program requires testing, demonstrating the crew escape system. The crew escape system is a very critical system in Gaganyaan,” Somanath told reporters in Madurai.
TV-D1 involves launching the crew module to outer space, bringing it back to earth and recovering it after touchdown in the Bay of Bengal. “So this test is to demonstrate that crew escape system in one condition of the flight. So this condition we are demonstrating is called the Transonic condition… Every month we will have at least one launch. After this test vehicle launch, we have GSLV. Then we have SSLV. Then after that, the Gaganyaan unmanned mission will be there. In between there will be a PSLV launch. So before January, you will see at least 4-5 launches,” Somanath said.