Elon Musk congratulates ISRO on 3rd test of Vikas Engine for Gaganyaan

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) for successfully conducting the third long-duration hot test on the Vikas Engine that would launch the ambitious Gaganyaan programme.

Musk, the founder of aerospace manufacturing giant SpaceX, commented “Congratulations” on ISRO’s tweet. His one-word tweet also has an Indian flag.

Congratulations! 🇮🇳

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2021

The engine was fired for a duration of 240 seconds at the ISRO facility in Tamil Nadu’s Mahendragiri. “#ISRO on July 14, 2021 has successfully conducted the hot test of the liquid propellant Vikas Engine for the core L110 liquid stage of the human rated GSLV MkIII vehicle, as part of engine qualification requirements for the #Gaganyaan Programme,” ISRO said in a tweet.

ISRO tested the liquid propellant Vikas Engine as part of the engine qualification requirements for the Gaganyaan programme, The test was conducted for the core L110 liquid stage of the human-rated GSLV MkIII vehicle, Isro said in a statement. “The performance of the engine met the test objectives and the engine parameters were closely matching with the predictions during the entire duration of the test,” the space agency said in a release.

Gaganyaan is ISRO’s major project of sending humans to space, to a low earth orbit, onboard an Indian vehicle. The first unmanned mission is planned for December 2021 and the second one is scheduled in 2022-23.