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After a string of delays, India's most ambitious mission is slowly finding its footing again.
On Tuesday (Feb. 7), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), India's national space agency, resumed a series of tests needed to perfect procedures and hardware for its Gaganyaan human spaceflight program. The agency collaborated with the Indian Navy to recover a mock crew module from a closed pool, it said Wednesday (Feb. 8) in a press release(opens in new tab).
The tests are being carried out at the Water Survival Test Facility, a location owned by the Indian Navy in Kochi (previously called Cochin), which is a city in southwest India. The state-of-the-art facility "simulates different sea state conditions, environmental conditions and day/night conditions," according to ISRO
ISRO has long been testing the hardware that will fly astronauts on Gaganyaan missions. The agency validated the program's launch vehicle(opens in new tab) in 2014 and its launch abort and crew escape system(opens in new tab)s in 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic halted(opens in new tab) astronaut training, adding to the program's setbacks. ISRO slowly bounced back in 2021 with tests of engines(opens in new tab), solid rocket boosters(opens in new tab) and parachutes(opens in new tab).
In the latest tests in a controlled environment at Kochi, scientists have begun nailing down operations to recover the Gaganyaan module and its crew after they splash down in the ocean at mission's end. For now, scientists are using a mockup called the Crew Module Recovery Model (CMRM), which simulates details of the real one upon touchdown on water, including its mass, dimensions and center of gravity, the agency said.
Kochi, part of the coastal state of Kerala, touches the Bay of Bengal and offers an open sea where the agency will likely test its crew modules in the coming months.
ISRO said these tests also train the recovery teams and flight crew, who will work in coordination during reentry and landing to wrap up the week-long Gaganyaan orbital mission. Similarly, NASA's team practiced nine such tests using a mockup of its Orion capsule before being certified(opens in new tab) to recover the real spacecraft from the Pacific Ocean after the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission landed last December.
For India, Gaganyaan is the first mission of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme, which was initiated back in 2007 with a goal to develop homegrown technology worthy of crewed missions. If successful, the mission would mark India's first crewed mission to space, and place the country fourth after the U.S., Russia and China to accomplish such a feat.
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