The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) rocket carrying payloads related to crew safety in Gaganyaan mission has lifted off from Sriharikota in the revised launch schedule. Around 9.40 AM, ISRO said it identified the reason behind the launch hold and has corrected. It said that the launch is planned at 10:00 hrs today. ISRO is about to make history with its ambitious Gaganyaan human spaceflight program with the test launch of the Test Vehicle (TV-D1), a single-stage liquid rocket.
The flight sequence began with the launch of the TV-D1. Six seconds into the flight, the fin enabling system was activated, followed by the activation of the Crew Escape System Pillbox at a speed of Mach number of 1.25, at an altitude of 11.8 km.
"I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the TV-D1 mission. The purpose of this mission was to demonstrate the crew escape system for the Gaganyaan program through a test vehicle demonstration in which the vehicle went up to a Mach number, which is slightly above the speed of sound and initiated an abort condition for the crew escape system to function. The crew escape system took the crew module away from the vehicle and subsequent operations including the touch-down at the sea have been very well accomplished. and we have a confirmation of the data for all of this...," ISRO Chief S Somanath said.
The launch is earlier scheduled for 8 am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. Later the flight was rescheduled twice.
At 8.44 AM, the computer, which had taken over the launch command, called off the launch with just five seconds on the clock as the space agency said that it would review the issue and identify the anomaly.
Isro Chief S Somnath said that something triggered the computer to withhold the launch. "We will manually analyse the anomaly," he added.
The Gaganyaan mission's primary goal is to launch humans into space, placing them in a Low Earth Orbit at an altitude of 400 kilometres for a three-day mission, with a safe return to Earth scheduled for 2025.
The crew for the Gaganyaan mission will be transported to the designated orbit using an LVM3 rocket. This rocket consists of various stages, including solid, liquid, and cryogenic propulsion systems.