"Mission Gaganyaan TV D1 Test Flight is accomplished": ISRO's unmanned module makes safe touchdown in the Bay of Bengal

The Gaganyaan mission's first test flight was successfully completed on Saturday by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota after it was aborted at 8:45 am because of an issue with the engine activation. The crew escape module and crew module were released during the brief test flight sequence at a height of 17 km, and they safely landed in the water around 10 km from Sriharikota in the Bay of Bengal.

Taking to 'X', ISRO announced, "Mission Gaganyaan TV D1 Test Flight is accomplished. Crew Escape System performed as intended. Mission Gaganyaan gets off on a successful note."

Within minutes of the test vehicle's successful launch, Gaganyaan TV-D1's three primary parachutes were released. ISRO Chief S Somanath reported that the TV-D1 Mission was successfully completed. He added that the mission aimed to test the crew escape technology for the Gaganyaan program. "After going through the nominal lift-off process, there was a hold issued by the ground computer, which is called the automatic launch sequence computer, that detected a non-conformance for allowing the engine to continue the thrusting to go further. This happened due to a monitoring anomaly in the system, which is why we could identify it very fast and correct it," said the ISRO Chief elucidating the reason for aborting the mission on time.