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The Indian Space Research Organisation on Sunday successfully conducted the landing demonstration of its under development Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) in Chitradurga of Karnataka.
The test was conducted at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, Karnataka in the early hours on April. The spacecraft resembles Nasa's space shuttles that acted as the US space agency's biggest transporter into Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
The spacecraft took off in the wee hours of Sunday via a Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter. It was launched as an underslung weight to an altitude of 4.5 kilometers above the surface on the heavy-lift chopper. Once it reached the test altitude, based on the RLV's Mission Management Computer command, the RLV was released in mid-air.
The release condition was matched by 10 parameters covering position, velocity, altitude and body rates as the spacecraft released autonomously. Isro said that RLV then performed approach and landing maneuvers using the Integrated Navigation, Guidance & control system and completed an autonomous landing on the ATR air strip.
“The autonomous landing was carried out under the exact conditions of a Space Re-entry vehicle's landing —high speed, unmanned, precise landing from the same return path— as if the vehicle arrived from space. Landing parameters such as Ground relative velocity, the sink rate of Landing Gears, and precise body rates, as might be experienced by an orbital re-entry space vehicle in its return path, were achieved,” Isro said in a statement.
Isro said that this is the first time in the world that a winged body has been carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by a helicopter and released for carrying out an autonomous landing on a runway.
RLV's configuration is the same as that of an aircraft and combines the complexity of both launch vehicles and aircraft.
“RLV is essentially a space plane with a low lift to drag ratio requiring an approach at high glide angles that necessitates a landing at high velocities of 350 kmph,” Isro added.
ISRO had demonstrated the re-entry of its winged vehicle RLV-TD in the HEX mission in May 2016. The re-entry of a hypersonic sub-orbital vehicle marked a major accomplishment in developing Reusable Launch Vehicles.
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