ISRO clears key Gaganyaan test, validating crew-module separation for first uncrewed flight
ISRO has completed ground tests of the Gaganyaan Crew Module and Service Module separation system at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, validating the design ahead of the first uncrewed G1 mission targeted for later this year.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully completed ground tests of the Crew Module and Service Module separation system for the Gaganyaan programme, validating the design ahead of the first uncrewed test flight, G1, targeted for later this year.
Engineers at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram rehearsed the full separation sequence, including the severing of the umbilical connections that link the two modules. ISRO said the tests validated both the separation system’s design and the robustness of critical Crew Module subsystems under the shocks of separation.
Those subsystems include the avionics, the inertial navigation systems, the Thermal Protection System, the Crew Module Deployable Umbilical Shield, and the pyrotechnic devices linked to the uprighting and thermal-and-humidity control systems.
The separation is one of the mission’s most decisive moments: before atmospheric re-entry, the Crew Module must release the Service Module — which supplies electricity and fluids through the umbilical lines — and travel alone for descent. Small pyrotechnic charges cut the connections and jettisoning systems push the modules apart.
ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan said in June that the launch was expected in the last quarter of 2026 and repeated in September that it would fly within the year, though no date has been announced. The flight will carry Vyommitra, a half-humanoid robot, instead of astronauts, with the first crewed mission targeted for 2027.
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