What’s next for Isro’s space shuttle

Monday’s test is one of the many tests that Isro will carry out towards the making of the space shuttle, which is at least a decade away

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Monday successfully carried out a technology demonstration of its reusable space launch vehicle, which will help the space agency cut costs for future space missions.

Monday’s test is one of the many tests that Isro will carry out towards the making of the vehicle, which is at least a decade away. Countries such as the US, Russia and Japan have developed their own reusable rocket technology.

What is Isro’s Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstration Programme?

Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstration Programme (RLV-TD) is a series of technology demonstration missions towards realizing a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully reusable vehicle. For the purpose of experiments, Isro scientists have developed a scaled model of the Winged Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) which is one fifth the size of the fully reusable vehicle. This model will be used to test various technologies, including hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion.

What happened during this technology demonstration?

RLV-TD lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, at 7am with the help of the HS9 solid rocket booster. After a successful flight of 91.1 second, HS9 burn out occurred, following which both HS9 and RLV-TD mounted on its top coasted to a height of 56km. Then RLV-TD separated from HS9 booster and further climbed to a height of about 65km.

RLV-TD began its descent followed by atmospheric re-entry at around Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) and then moved smoothly down to the landing spot over Bay of Bengal, a 450km away from Sriharikota. The flight duration from launch to landing lasted for about 770 seconds.

What’s next?

This test was the first in the series of experimental flights called the hypersonic flight experiment (HEX). This will be followed by the landing experiment (LEX), then the return flight experiment (REX) and scramjet propulsion experiment (SPEX). The big test will be the Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator Hypersonic Experiment (RLV-TD HEX1) which will test the re-entry of the vehicle and also test the capability to autonomously land at a specific location.

Why are reusable launch vehicles important?

A reusable launch vehicle will be capable of taking satellites and other payloads to space and then landing back on earth so that it can be used more than once and is expected to drastically reduce the cost of space missions in the future. Isro scientists say their reusable launch vehicle could reduce the cost of space missions to a tenth of what they are today.

Elon Musk who is the chief executive officer of SpaceX, which is also developing reusable launch vehicles last year said, “If one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred. A fully reusable vehicle has never been done before. That really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to revolutionize access to space.” In the past year Elon Musk’s Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have made major strides in testing their reusable launch vehicles.

Why was the US Space Shuttle retired?

The US space agency National Aeronautical and Space Administration had a space shuttle programme from 1981 to 2011. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low-earth orbit spacecraft. From 1981 to 2011, a total of 135 missions were flown.

But in 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board which was formed after the Columbia shuttle accident, called for a re-certification of the shuttle by 2010, leading to its eventual retirement