We Are Just Months Away From Launching A Made-In-India Space Shuttle
The 15 tonne vehicle resembling an aircraft is provisionally slated to make its maiden flight towards the end of July or August from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota. Its primary role will be to reduce the cost of access to space The cost of placing 1 kg of object in space is about $5000 which scientists are hoping will come down to about $500.
India is on the cusp of developing its own reusable space launch vehicle, popularly known as a space shuttle. ISRO's 1.5 tonne vehicle resembling an aircraft is provisionally slated to make its maiden flight towards the end of July or August from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. Officially known as the reusable launch vehicle (RLV-TD), it is undergoing final preparations at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. Its primary role will be to reduce the cost of access to space. The cost of placing 1 kg of object in space is about $5,000, which scientists are hoping will come down to about $500 with the RLV.
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As of now, there are no plans to use it for a manned mission. Speaking to TOI, those connected with the nearly Rs 100-crore project said that the spacecraft will initially be carried by a single solid rocket booster with nine tonnes of propellants. After lift off, it will zoom to an altitude of 70 km and then execute a soft landing in the Bay of Bengal. The duration of this sub-orbital mission is expected to be around 900 seconds.
The most anticipated moment will be when the vehicle re-enters the Earth's atmosphere at five times the speed of sound. An ISRO engineer told TOI: "To prevent the vehicle from getting damaged (due to heat), its nose has been protected by carbon-carbon and there are about 600 heat-resistant tiles placed around the vehicle. These tiles will be able to withstand a temperature to about 1,200 degrees Celsius."
The space-qualified tiles have been procured from Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, after it splashes down, the vehicle will sink to the bottom of the sea and for now there are no plans to recover it. "We have simulated different scenarios and we know what can happen. But, we have kept other options open. If there is a change of thinking at the last moment, we may seek the help of the Indian Navy and the Coast Guard to recover it," the engineer said.
ISRO ultimately plans to develop technology to land the shuttle on a runway. The mission, which will attract global interest, will evaluate technologies such as hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion. These technologies will be developed in phases through a series of experimental flights. The first in the series is the hypersonic flight experiment followed by the landing experiment, return flight experiment and scramjet propulsion experiment.
Originally published in the Times of India
