New Delhi, July 5 -- Three astronauts who have not yet been named will one day ride India's first crewed spacecraft back into the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, and their survival will depend on ten parachutes opening in the right sequence at the right altitude. On Friday, the Indian Space Research Organisation lit a rocket motor on a test stand in Sriharikota for ten hours straight to make sure that sequence works.

to carry a dummy version of the Gaganyaan crew module to an altitude of 10 to 17 kilometers, cut it loose, and let engineers watch whether the module's parachute-based deceleration system brings it down safely enough for a real astronaut to survive. Friday's test did not launch anything. It was a static groun...