ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission

Indian Space Research Organisation successfully conducted the second air drop test for the Gaganyaan mission at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, validating crew module recovery systems crucial for India’s first human spaceflight planned next year

New Delhi: Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota.

The system is essential to ensure safe recovery of the crew module — the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight — during re-entry and landing.

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Union Minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.

“Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India’s first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota,” Singh said in a post on X.

The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025 at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft’s return to the Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.

These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open, and the spacecraft’s orientation and safety during splashdown, etc.

In the first IADT, a 4.8-tonne dummy crew module was dropped from a height of three km by a Chinook helicopter.

After the module’s release, a parachute system, comprising 10 parachutes, was deployed, helping the capsule decelerate to a safe splashdown speed.