For the first uncrewed flight of the Gaganyaan mission in 2025, ISRO begins building HLVM3
INN/New Delhi, @Infodeaofficial
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) started stacking HLVM3 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC-SHAR) in Sriharikota on Wednesday, marking a significant milestone towards the ambitious Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme.
The mission will be the first uncrewed flight under the ambitious Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, and it is scheduled to launch in 2025. The collected data will be crucial to the manned missions’ success. The date falls on December 18, 2014, the tenth anniversary of the LVM3-X/CARE mission.
ISRO is starting to assemble HLVM3 for Gaganyaan’s first uncrewed flight on the tenth anniversary of LVM3-X/CARE! An important step towards India’s future space goals and first human spaceflight,” ISRO stated. “The official launch campaign of the HLVM3-G1 / OM-1 mission began at 8:45 a.m. on December 18 at SDSC when the nozzle end segment with full flex seal nozzle of the S200 motor was stacked,” the statement continued.
Launching its first flight in 2014, LVM3-X (now known as HLVM3) “lifted a Crew Module of mass of 3,775 kg (LVM3-X/CARE mission) into a suborbital altitude of 126 km.” It was positioned for a good re-entry using thrusters, and it later splashed down in the Bay of Bengal with ease. The Indian Coast Guard recovered it. Long before the formal Gaganyaan project was approved in 2019, the Crew Module was created as part of the Human Spaceflight Project’s pre-project efforts.
“It is a fitting coincidence that ten years later, on the same day, ISRO is starting to stack human-rated LVM3 in preparation for the first uncrewed mission of Gaganyaan,” the ISRO stated. The ISRO mission’s chairman, Dr. S. Somanath, served as the LVM3-X/CARE mission’s director at the time. Derived from LVM3, the new HLVM3 is built with increased reliability to satisfy human safety requirements.
Crucially, it also has a Crew Escape System (CES) to guarantee crew safety. This system is in use from the launch pad until it separates. In the event of an emergency, the crew can safely exit the Crew Module. The three-stage HLVM3 can carry roughly 10 tonnes of cargo to low Earth orbit. The truck weights 640 tonnes and stands 53 meters tall. The Crew Module and related systems are undergoing final inspections at ISRO sites as the vehicle prepares for launch, according to ISRO.
The success of the LVM3-X/CARE mission influenced ISRO’s human spaceflight program. The space agency stated that the “iterations in the Crew Module design of the Ganganyaan mission, along with subsequent pad abort tests, air-drop tests, and test vehicle flights” were developed with the use of the fundamental data from the CARE mission.
According to ISRO, the new Crew Module, which has several redundancies and improved safety margins, will travel on the Human-rated LVM3, guaranteeing the Gaganyatris’ safety. Additionally, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) development and operation will be greatly aided by the Gaganyaan program.