OCTOBER 21 was a special day for India as on this day, the country took another big leap in space. Overcoming all obstacles and challenges, the country’s premium space agency Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) created history by launching the first-test flight of the Gaganyaan mission. The crew module of Gaganyaan was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
It is also being called Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 and Test Vehicle Development Flight (TV-DV1). Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the ISRO scientists for the successful test-flight of the Gaganyaan Mission. “This launch takes us one step closer to realising Gaganyaan, India’s first human space flight programme,” he said in his message.
With this successful flight, tests of ISRO’s Gaganyaan mission have started. By 2025, the Gaganyaan campaign will take Indian astronauts to Earth’s orbit for the first time from Indian soil and through indigenously developed spacecraft. The first crewless flight of this vehicle will be carried out at the end of the next year.
This mission is a new leap in India’s space science technology as it will be the first time that India will not only send three Indian astronauts into the low Earth orbit with its indigenous technology, but also bring them back from there safely.
Through this mission, ISRO will send humans into the low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 300 to 400 kilometres for seven days. Special types of space suits have been designed for the astronauts and Russian support has been received in the training work. ISRO itself has prepared the capsule for them in which special care is being taken for the safety of the passengers.
If the Gaganyaan mission is successful, India will become the fourth country after the US, Russia and China, where the technology required to send humans into space is being developed. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission has already landed on the moon. Surya Yaan has also started on its journey. After Moon and Sun, ISRO now has set its eyes on the entire space. For this, it has prepared the Gaganyaan mission.
More tests are yet to be conducted to make the Gaganyaan mission successful and complete. At present, ISRO has crossed the first important milestone. Very soon TV-D2 and unmanned Gaganyaan (LVM3-G1) will also be tested. Now every countryman is going to wait for the next test of the Gaganyaan mission.
But India’s mission is not limited to Gaganyaan only. The list is quite long. India’s own space station is yet to be built, so Indians are yet to set foot on the moon. ISRO will also launch NISAR mission in 2024, which will be a joint mission of NASA and ISRO. A partnership agreement was signed on this in 2014. The space agencies of the US and India are preparing it. This mission can be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in January 2024. This is such an aperture radar with the help of which natural disasters coming in the world can be predicted in advance. We hope that ISRO’s ‘Infinite Journey of Space Missions’ will continue in the same manner as ‘Infinite Space’ and will keep climbing new steps of success.
