HAL hands over Crew Module Fairing for Gaganyaan

New Delhi: Indian state-owned aerospace and defence company, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) today on August 18 handed over the Crew Module Fairing (CMF) & High-altitude escape motor Thrust-transfer Structure (HTS) to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the 1st development flight of Gaganyaan. The two big components of the Gaganyaan mission were handed over to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

HAL tweets, Crew Module Fairing (CMF) & High-altitude escape motor Thrust-transfer Structure (HTS) hardware for the 1st development flight of Gaganyaan were received yesterday by Dr. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director, VSSC from Shri Mihir Kanti Mishra CEO, BC, HAL in Bengaluru.

HAL also handed over equipment to ISRO for the country's maiden astronaut mission. 

About Gaganyaan

Gaganyaan is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capability. In its maiden crewed mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s largely autonomous 5.3 metric tonnes capsule will orbit the Earth at 400 km altitude for up to seven days with a two or three-person crew on board. 

The first crewed mission was originally planned to be launched on ISRO's GSLV Mk III in December 2021, but this has since been delayed to no earlier than 2024.

This Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) manufactured crew module had its first un-crewed experimental flight on 18 December 2014.