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Updated February 8th, 2023 at 20:46 IST

ISRO begins recovery trials of Gaganyaan crew capsule at Navy facility, pictures out

ISRO performed recovery trials for Gaganyaan missions in closed pools at the Water Survival Test Facility (WSTF) of the Indian Navy in Kochi.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
ISRO
These pools simulate real-life conditions of the sea and will help validate the Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for the recovery process; Image: ISRO | Image:self
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ISRO, on February 7, began training for recovery of the crew capsule that will be used for the Gaganyaan missions starting later this year. The recovery trials were performed in closed pools at the Water Survival Test Facility (WSTF) of the Indian Navy in Kochi. These pools simulate real-life conditions of the sea and will help validate the Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for recovery of the crew and their spacecraft. 

"As the safe recovery of the crew is the final step to be accomplished for any successful human spaceflight, it is of paramount importance and it has to be carried out with the minimum lapse of time. Hence the recovery procedures for various scenarios need to be extensively practiced by carrying out a large number of trials", ISRO said in an official release.

"The Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) for recovery of Crew and Crew Module need to be finalized. The recovery trials will be initially carried out in a closed pool followed by trials in a harbor and in the open sea", it further said. 

The recovery trials were performed at the WSTF under conditions simulating the mass, center of gravity, outer dimensions and externals of the actual crew module that will be experienced during the splashdown in Indian waters. The state-of-the-art training facility, which can copy the sea environment in both day and night, is capable of providing realistic training of aircrew for escape from a ditched spacecraft under varied simulated conditions and crash scenarios, said ISRO. The final recovery operations will see participation of several government agencies that will be led by the Indian Navy. 

Launch of Gaganyaan

The Gaganyaan program will begin with the launch of a test mission in the fourth quarter of 2023. The program consists of three missions; first two will be unmanned and the third will see three Indian astronauts launch to 400 kilometres in space aboard the LVM3 rocket and splash down after spending three days in low-Earth orbit (LEO). The third mission, however, is targeted for launch no earlier than late 2024 as ISRO is putting in additional work in crew protection systems. 

A few undisclosed Indian Military officers have been trained for the crewed Gaganyaan mission first at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Moscow and then at the Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru. On February 6, IIT Madras announced that it has will develop a training module for training ISRO astronauts through augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). 

 

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Published February 8th, 2023 at 20:46 IST

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