India recently completed a series of tests to demonstrate its own technology for autonomously landing its reusable launch vehicle, agency officials said in a recent press release.
This milestone brings the country one step closer to the goal of having such a vehicle fully operational within this decade. The technology can then be more cost-effectively adapted to the fleet of launch vehicles for multiple use on different missions.
The latest demonstration, the third and final RLV Landing Experiment (LEX), was conducted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on June 23, 2024, at a government-run outdoor test facility in Karnataka, a state in southern India. The spaceplane, named Pushpak, “performed a precision horizontal landing, showcasing advanced autonomous capabilities under challenging conditions,” the space agency said in a statement. recent post about X. “Now that the objectives of RLV LEX have been achieved, ISRO is embarking on RLV [orbital reuse vehicle]”, which aims to fly the prototype into space for autonomous re-entry.
The latest test was led by the Kerala-based Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC), which was commissioned in 2020 to boost launch vehicle development. achieve full reusability in this decade.
From observations of the first two landing tests – last year’s RLV-LEX-01 and LEX-02 that was performed in March — ISRO said it has strengthened Pushpak’s mechanical structures and landing gear so that the spaceplane can sustain higher landing speeds. The latest test on June 23 tested the vehicle’s landing capabilities under more challenging conditions compared to earlier tests, including higher winds, ISRO said.
As part of the test, the 21-foot-long (6.5-meter) space plane was flown by a Chinook helicopter operated by the Indian Air Force to an altitude of about 4.5 kilometers above the Earth’s surface and released in mid-air.
To test the aircraft’s landing technology, the vehicle was deliberately released 500 meters off the center of the underlying runway, ISRO said. The aircraft then automatically maneuvered itself to approach the runway and performed a precise landing in the center of the runway.
“The on-board systems performed their role perfectly and enabled the aircraft to make its third consecutive landing on the centre line of the runway,” said Unnikrishnan Nair, an aerospace engineer and director of VSSC. WION“From an initial distance of 500 meters from the runway centerline, the aircraft was ultimately 11 cm or 0.1 meters from the runway centerline.”
The vehicle used its parachute to reduce its speed from nearly 200 mph (322 km/h) to about 62 mph (104 km/h), and later applied its brakes to slow down and come to a stop. In this way, the test simulated approach and landing conditions similar to those of a vehicle re-entering the earth’s atmosphere of a trip to space, ISRO said.
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The vehicle’s bodywork and flight systems were used as they were from the start. second landing test That was conducted in March and shows ISRO’s strong capability to design flight systems that can be reused for multiple missions, said Girish Linganna, an aerospace and political analyst based in Bengaluru. The week.
Developing technology essential for such a reusable launch vehicle “is one of ISRO’s most technologically challenging endeavors,” the space agency has said previously said.
With the success of the spacecraft’s latest landing test, the agency has taken an important step toward achieving this goal.
