THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) has every reason to ‘pat’ itself on the back.
The Crew Escape System (CES) used for the Indian Space Research Organisation’s successful Pad Abort Test (PAT) from the Sriharikota spaceport on Thursday was fully designed and developed by the VSSC here at Thumba.
Thursday’s PAT was the first of several that are lined up for validating the technology for an actual space flight involving humans in the future, top VSSC officials said.
‘‘We have identified six different sets of conditions where the crew may have to be rescued between the launch and arrival in orbit. We have to conduct several more tests to validate the technology
before humans can use it,’’ VSSC director S Somanath said. VSSC is ISRO’s lead agency for launch vehicle technology.
“We have a team at VSSC working on Human Spaceflight Development. ISRO had conducted the Crew module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) in 2014. Since 2015, the team has successfully conducted several ground tests of various components,’’ he said.
CES is a must for rockets designed to carry humans to space. It is essentially a safety mechanism used to snatch the crew module, in which crew sits, away from the rocket to a safe distance if the launch has to be aborted either at the launch pad itself or during the initial stages of flight.
CES is powered by a set of quick-acting solid propellant motors. Once they are fired, the system accelerates at 10 times that of the earth’s gravity and hurls the module to the safety zone within a matter of seconds.
India has become the fourth country, after Russia, US and China, to possess the key technology, VSSC officials said.