All arrangements have been made for the launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark-III from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota here on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.

It is going to be an experimental launch for the Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE), an unmanned crew module which is aimed at testing the effectiveness of the module to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere.

The Rs. 155-crore mission would involve the use of GSLV rocket as tall as 42.4 metres and having a lift-off mass of 630 tonnes. One of the objectives of this heavy rocket is to achieve India’s self-reliance in commercial launches market in the world as well.

The 24-hour-and-half countdown for the GSLV Mk-III launch began at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, with the space scientists drawn from different centres of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) making combined efforts at the Sriharikota space centre. Earlier, Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman, ISRO, visited the space centre and reviewed the progress of the mission.

Within hours of the countdown, the filling of the propellants in the second stage of the rocket were completed at 1 p.m. The scientists said that the mission was progressing satisfactorily. The key feature of this CARE mission is to recover the unmanned module, which is set to separate from the rocket after 325.52 seconds of the flight at an altitude of 126.16 kms.

The module would then be crashed into the Bay of Bengal a few hundred kilometres from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Indian Coast Guard made arrangements for the recovery of the module from the sea waters. The GSLV successfully launched the GSLV D5 from Sriharikota on January 5 this year.