India successfully completes key test in Gaganyaan mission

Sriharikota, Agencies: India on Saturday successfully completed the first unmanned test flight in its ambitious human space flight mission Gaganyaan, less than two hours after the launch was aborted with just four seconds to go for the lift-off.

After some tense moments following a system monitoring anomaly and two weather-related holds, the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) said scientists simulated an abort situation for the Crew Escape System (CES) to carry the Crew Module(CM) out of the test vehicle TV-D1.

The module to test the safety of crew in emergency situations descended using parachutes for a splashdown into the Bay of Bengal with planned precision, the space agency said.

ISRO chief S Somanath said the crew module has been fully recovered from the sea and it has been brought to Chennai port.

"Eastern Naval Command units recovered the Crew Module a path paved by extensive planning, training of Naval divers, formulation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and joint communication by combined teams of Navy and ISRO," the Indian Navy said in a statement in the evening. The Navy also shared pictures of its personnel recovering the module from the waters, about 10 km from the coast of Sriharikota.

The test essentially involved launching the empty CM into outer space, bringing the module back to earth and recovering it from the sea after touchdown.