ISRO scientists building intelligence into rockets to boost crew safety

The rocket will be able to take a call on whether to eject the crew in case trouble arises, says ISRO Chairman S. Somanath

The Indian Space Research Organisation is not in a hurry to execute Gaganyaan, the manned mission to space, and the Chandrayaan-3 mission in a hurry as the space agency wants to ensure all safety aspects and systems are absolutely in place leaving no room for any issues to occur, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said on Thursday.

While the Gaganyaan mission was an extremely important one for ISRO, ensuring the safety of astronauts flying on the GSLV Mk III was the top priority for the agency, he said. Scientists were working on the crew escape module and implementing intelligence into the rocket so that in case an issue arises, the rocket can decide that the crew needs to eject the vehicle.

“Aircraft can let pilots know that they have to eject. But rockets cannot do that. Rockets are moving very fast and rockets themselves have to find out something is going bad now ‘so let these fellows go away’. It will automatically command an escape system and the astronauts can escape. This is a new system we are working on,” he said.

The Chairman said for astronauts to fly on these rockets, the safety system had to be fool-proof after several tests and the agency did not want to hurry through the programme and end up with a disaster.

“We have made it very clear that this year we want to qualify the escape system. We are going to do the crew abort mission. We have a new rocket for that called the test vehicle. The test vehicle with a crew module, crew escape system will go through a demonstration and will be repeated this year. We will be doing one unmanned mission most probably in the middle of next year. After that we will do two more test vehicle missions to demonstrate the crew escape system. A total of four crew escape missions are planned to prove that the crew can escape in case of an anomaly. The launch cannot happen this year or next year. This is for the safety of our folks,” he said.

He also said while the Chandrayaan-3 mission was getting ready for launch, ISRO was “not in a hurry to go to the moon” adding “this time, we want to land”, following the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. Mr. Somanath said tests were currently being done on the lander and propulsion systems and ISRO was making them rugged. “Some mass increase in the lander has occurred. Its legs have been made rugged. The propulsion system also needs to be rugged and tests are going on at Mahendragiri,” he said.

Another key aspect ISRO was looking at was the sensors on the Chandrayaan-3 mission. “Last time we had doubts on sensors. So we are adding new sensors, helicopter sorties, experiments. Let us complete all tests and be clear,” Mr. Somanath said.