NEW DELHI – India successfully conducted the first in a series of test flights on Saturday after overcoming a technical glitch to launch astronauts into space by 2025, the space agency said.
The test involved launching a module into space and returning it to Earth to test the spacecraft’s crew escape system, said S. Somanath, chief of the Indian Space Research Organization. The ship was recovered after landing in the Bay of Bengal.
Due to weather conditions, the start was delayed by 45 minutes in the morning. The new attempt was again delayed by more than an hour due to a problem with the engine and the ground computer put the module’s launch on hold, Somanath said.
The problem caused by a monitoring anomaly in the system was resolved and the test was successfully conducted 75 minutes later from the Sriharikota satellite launch station in southern India, Somanath told reporters.
This would pave the way for more unmanned missions, including sending a robot into space next year.
In September, India successfully launched its first space mission to explore the sun, less than two weeks after a successful unmanned landing near the moon’s south pole.
After a failed attempt to land on the moon, India became the fourth country to reach the milestone in September, joining the US, Russia and China.
The successful mission highlighted India’s growing position as a technology and space power and is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an emerging country asserting its place among the global elite.
Mr Modi announced earlier this week that the Indian Space Agency would build 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 next year in collaboration with the United States.