ISRO gearing up for Gaganyaan mission's first abort test of crew escape system this month-end

tech.hindustantimes.com:

ISRO plans to undertake an inflight abort test of the crew escape system by this month-end using a test vehicle developed as part of the country's ambitious maiden human spaceflight venture Gaganyaan. "Preparations are going on. All vehicle systems have reached Sriharikota (for the launch).

Final assembly is progressing. We are getting ready for launch by the end of October," Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) S Unnikrishnan Nair told PTI on Thursday. "(With) this crew escape system, we will demonstrate (validate) in different conditions like high dynamic pressure and for transonic conditions," Nair added Thiruvananthapuram-based VSSC is the lead centre of ISRO under the Department of Space.

An ISRO official said the crew escape system (CES) is the most important element in Gaganyaan. According to ISRO officials, this month's launch of the test vehicle TV-D1 would be the first of the four abort missions of the Gaganyaan programme. It would be followed by the second test vehicle TV-D2 mission and first uncrewed mission of Gaganyaan (LVM3-G1).

The second series of test vehicle missions (TV-D3 & D4) and LVM3-G2 mission with robotic payload is planned next. The crewed mission is planned based on the outcome of the successful test vehicle and the missions in which no crew is on board, they said. The test vehicle is a single-stage rocket, based on liquid propulsion, developed to validate the CES performance at different critical Mach numbers but Nair said it can be used for many purposes including space tourism.

"We are taking (the test vehicle) to transonic conditions. That means crossing the Mach number of one. We will go to something like Mach number of 1.2.