India tests parachutes for Gaganyaan astronaut capsule (video)

India took another step toward its first-ever human spaceflight last week, successfully testing the parachute system for its Gaganyaan astronaut capsule.

The test occurred on Nov. 3, using an Indian Air Force IL-76 aircraft and a capsule mass simulator that tipped the scales at 7.2 tons (6.5 metric tons).

The plane took off from Babina Field Firing Range, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. It dropped the dummy capsule at an altitude of 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers), forcing the Gaganyaan parachutes into action.

There are 10 of those chutes on the Gaganyaan capsule, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) — two that remove the protective cover of the chute compartment, two “drogues” that both stabilize and slow the vehicle’s descent, and three “pilots” that extract the three main chutes, which do the lion’s share of the deceleration work.

The mains deploy via a step-by-step process that concludes with “disreefing” — the full opening of a partially inflated (or “reefed”) chute. And there’s redundancy built into the system; just two of the three mains need to deploy to get the capsule down safely.

The Nov. 3 test went with two mains — and it applied stress on them with an off-nominal situation.

“The test evaluated the system’s structural integrity and load distribution under asymmetric disreefing conditions — one of the most critical load scenarios expected during actual mission descent,” ISRO officials said in a description of the drop test.

The chutes handled everything well, according to ISRO.

“The parachute system deployed as planned and the sequence was executed flawlessly, and the test article achieved a stable descent and soft landing, validating the robustness of the parachute design,” agency officials said. “The successful completion of this test marks another significant step toward qualifying the parachute system for human spaceflight.”

Other big steps remain, however, before the first Gaganyaan astronaut flight can launch to low Earth orbit. For example, ISRO currently plans to launch three uncrewed test missions with the capsule, which will carry a data-collecting half-humanoid robot named Vyomitra (Sanskrit for “space friend”).

If all goes well with those flights, astronauts could fly aboard the Gaganyaan crew module in the first quarter of 2027, ISRO officials have said.