On Monday morning, the Indian Space Research Organisation successfully flight tested its ‘Reusable Launch Vehicle – Technology Demonstrator’ (RLV-TD) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. This winged craft, with its distinctive twin tail-fins, is intended as a key step toward the space agency’s goal of creating a reusable launch vehicle that could cut launch costs by as much as nine-tenths.
In the flight test, the RLV-TD was carried aloft by a rocket booster and reached an altitude of about 65 km. It then descended, reaching a peak velocity of five times the speed of sound, before landing in the Bay of Bengal about 13 minutes later. “The vehicle’s navigation, guidance and control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent,” an ISRO release said, and the craft successfully survived the “high temperatures of re-entry with the help of its Thermal Protection System.”
ISRO’s current conception for such a reusable launcher is to have a two-stage-to-orbit configuration. A winged first stage would incorporate an advanced air-breathing propulsion system that takes in air as it flies to burn the fuel carried onboard. This stage would take the second stage and payload high up into the atmosphere and, after separating from the latter, return to land on a runway.
The second stage would accelerate the payload the rest of the way using conventional rocket propulsion. Afterward, this second stage too would be brought back to the ground. However, such an advanced launch vehicle may materialise only “some 20 years from now”, according to K. Sivan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, ISRO’s lead centre for launch-vehicle development.
But with SpaceX, the American spaceflight company started by entrepreneur Elon Musk, promising to achieve rocket reuse and bring about lower launch costs with existing technology, ISRO has some plans to ensure it remains competitive in the short-term as well.