2023-10-21 16:50:22
NEW DELHI — India successfully conducted the first in a series of test flights on Saturday, following overcoming a technical glitch, towards its mission to take astronauts into space by 2025, said the space agency.
The test involved launching a module into space and returning it to Earth to test the craft’s crew escape system, Indian Space Research Organization chief S. Somanath said. The craft was recovered following landing in the Bay of Bengal.
The launch was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning due to weather conditions. The new attempt was once more postponed for more than an hour due to a problem with the engine and the ground computer put the module’s takeoff on hold, Somanath said.
The problem caused by a surveillance anomaly in the system was corrected and the test was successfully conducted 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launch station in southern India, Somanath told the journalists.
This would pave the way for other unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.
In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to study the sun, less than two weeks following a successful uncrewed landing near the Moon’s south pole.
After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India in September joined the United States, Russia and China as the fourth country to achieve this milestone.
The successful mission highlighted India’s growing position as a technological and space power and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an ascendant country asserting its place among the elite worldwide.
Mr. Modi announced earlier this week that the Indian space agency will set up an Indian space station by 2035 and send an Indian astronaut to the moon by 2040.
Since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and other countries, and successfully put one into orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station l next year in collaboration with the United States.
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