Inching towards realising India's ambition to send humans to space, ISRO today successfully tested an unmanned crew module on board an experimental mission of its heaviest rocket GSLV Mark-III that blasted off from here.

Around 730 seconds after it lifted off at 9.30 AM from the Second Launch Pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, the crew module--CARE (Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment)--splashed down into the Bay of Bengal, after separating from the LVM3-X rocket with active S200 and L110 propulsion stages.

Three levels of parachutes specially designed by Agra- based DRDO lab Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment helped the crew module descend safely into the sea, about 180 kms from Indira Point, the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

"We have got the signal from the beacon in the crew capsule. Indian Coast Guard ships have received them and they are some 100 kms away from the site presently moving to recover it," S Unnikrishnan Nair, Project Director of ISRO's Human Spaceflight Programme, said.

Weighing three tonnes, the 2.7 metre tall cupcake-shaped crew module with a diameter of 3.1 metre features aluminium alloy internal structure with composite panels and ablative thermal protection systems and can carry two to three astronauts.

The module would be shipped to Kamarajar Port in Ennore near Chennai, from where it would be taken to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala for further study.

As for the objective of validation of the complex atmospheric flight regime of GSLV Mk III, ISRO Chief K Radhakrishnan said the two active S200 and L110 propulsive stages "performed as expected."



"We have made it again...ISRO's capability of launching heavier payloads has come to shape and this will change our destiny and our capability has significantly enhanced. The cryogenic engine is under development and it would take two years," GSLV Mk III Project Director S Somanath said.