Dire are the consequences of burning crores of rupees into the ground. But greater is the sin of letting human lives turn to ash when a rocket launch fails. To prevent such misery and melancholy, the Indian Space Research Organization(ISRO) has stepped forward and on Thursday and conducted another test of its crew escape system. This system is being developed as an integral part of the human spaceflight programme and would be another milestone in the growth of indigenous technology in the field of space flight and exploration. The crew escape system test was conducted in Sriharikota for its crew capsule in an emergency pod abort test(PAT).

The main focus of the organization, however, is the Rs. 800 crore Chandrayaan-II mission scheduled to be launched in October.
ISRO has also completed the wind tunnel model with landing gear and low subsonic tests at the Indian Institute of Technology – Kanpur(IIT-K) for the Reusable Vehicle Launch Technology(RLV) and in the near future shall carry out orbit re-entry experiment. Scientists at ISRO have estimated that the tech will bring down launch cost to one-tenth of its present value. It will be a crux for the Two-Stage-to-Orbit(TSTO) fully reusable vehicle, which can be used multiple times. This technology will be of paramount importance for the proposed unmanned mission, though not approved completely by the government but has been sanctioned with Rs. 145 crore for pre-launch activities.

Moreover, ISRO has transferred its lithium-ion tech for commercial production to Indian industries to set up Li-ion cell production facilities for development of indigenous electric vehicles. The transfer is occurring at a nominal fee of Rs. 1 crore.
These plans for crew rescue system will help save the lives of many of our brave astronauts and will surely propel India skywards beyond the horizon towards the peak of space flight technology.