Chennai: In only a few weeks from now, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be taking a significant leap in its ambitious, manned mission project to space. Scientists at the country’s premier space research agency are all set to test their most recent and powerful launch vehicle, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III. It has a payload comprising a crew module that will successfully re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and be brought back to the space station.
Announcing the experimental launch of GSLV-Mark III, Dr. M Y S Prasad, director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, said that the launch vehicle would test the agency’s Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) as a platform for testing the re-entry technologies envisaged for the crew module.
“The payload will not be put in its orbit, but will re-enter the earth’s atmosphere and be recovered with the help of the Indian Coast Guard. This will help us successfully demonstrate Isro’s capability to retrieve the crew module that will be used for future manned missions,” Dr. Prasad said.
The experimental launch is expected to take place from December 15 -20. The crew module that will be sent as a payload has a base diameter of 3.1 m and a height of 2.7 m, which is almost the size of a small bedroom and is much larger than the Russian manned mission’s crew module.
Explaining the intricacies of the project, CARE project director Dr. Unnikrishnan said that while the crew module, which has a lift-off mass of 3,735 kg, is not a full-fledged module, it is very similar in size and will use three sets of parachutes to ensure that it lands safely in the sea.
The crew module will be separated from the launch vehicle at an altitude of 126 km, re-enter the earth’s atmosphere at about 80 km and descend further in ballistic mode. Beyond 80 km, the module will follow uncontrolled re-entry trajectory and impact the sea at about 180 km from the Andaman and Nicobar islands from where it will be recovered by the Coast Guard.
The entire experiment is expected to last a little over 20 minutes by which time the crew module would have successfully been lifted off the earth’s atmosphere (325.52 seconds), re-enter and make contact with the ocean around 600 km away from Sriharikota.
While this experiment is expected to help the Centre take concrete decisions on the country’s manned mission to space, the successful launch of GSLV Mark III will take the country one step further in its ambition to be self-reliant in carrying large satellites, weighing around four tonnes, successfully.
