By Venkatachari Jagannathan

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh), May 29 (IANS): The Indian space agency will in July test the crew escape systems of the Gaganyaan project rocket, said a top official.

"We are getting ready for the test vehicle mission. We have to get the crew module and crew escape system. By July we will integrate the systems with the rocket," S. Somanath, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told reporters here on Monday.

Somanath said at an altitude of 14km the safety systems of the crew module and crew escape system will be tested.

Once the safety tests are satisfactory, an unmanned Gaganyaan mission will be planned early next year.

Somanath said other systems for Gaganyaan are being tested at ISRO's various centres.

Recently, ISRO and the Indian Navy took a major step forward in connection with the recovery operations for Gaganyaan mission.

The Gaganyaan Recovery Training Plan was released jointly by the two organisations.

Queried about the status of ISRO's second rocket port at Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu, he said 99 per cent of the land needed has been acquired and land for approach roads are to be acquired.

Somanath also said the space agency is working on designing a new rocket that can carry much higher luggage and also upgrading the LVM3 rocket to lift up to 5.5 ton from the current four ton capacity.

Speaking about the forthcoming launches, Somanath said the space agency was planning to launch weather satellite INSAT-3DS with Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

Somanath said ISRO will have to complete the navigation satellite constellation by launching four more NVS series satellites.

On Monday, ISRO successfully put into orbit the first of the second generation navigation satellites named NVS-01.