ISRO showed once again why it is among the best in the world and the best in India by showing its latest technological demonstration of the REUSABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE- TECHNOLOGY DEMENSTRATER or RLV-TD. The success of this puts India in a comfortable position towards making a reusable shuttle. Recently SpaceX demonstrated its ability to reuse a vehicle and land it back on a platform in the sea. RLV did something similar to it, by landing at the predefined point exactly in the sea. We bring you the key points that will help you in understanding RLV.
1.The reusable launch vehicle , as the name suggests is basically a launch vehicle which will take satellites to space, come back to earth and can be used again for a similar purpose. By doing so we can cut the cost of the launch to almost 80% as most of the cost involved in the launch goes to the launch vehicle.
2. The Test conducted by ISRO is a pre-test to an upcoming test. The launch vehicle was take up 70km and then ditched its boosters and made a re-entry into the earth. During the re-entry, the shuttle was controlled by wings to its designated point in the sea.
3. The reusable launch vehicle made entry into the earth at a hypersonic speed ie above 5 MACH, this also allowed ISRO to test the material used in such reusable launch vehicles. Post analysis of the vehicle will reveal this data. Since it made an entry in hypersonic speed the experiment is also called as RLV-TD HEX.
4.The cost of the whole test is about 95 crore which is very much less compared to other nations which are trying to build an RLV. ISRO is known for its cost effectiveness once again proved its worth.
5.No other country is currently operationally flying a winged spacecraft into space – the US retired its space shuttles in 2011 and the Russians flew theirs only once in 1989.
6.A total of four RLV-TD flights is planned by ISRO.
- HEX (Hypersonic Flight Experiment) —Successfully launched on 23 May 2016.
- LEX (Landing Experiment)
- REX (Return Flight Experiment)
- SPEX (Scramjet Propulsion Experiment)on march2017
Though the demonstration is a very small step in the whole process of building a reusable launch vehicle, precision mattered and the ISRO delivered it yet again. The ISRO has also said that it will take at least 10 years for actual flight to happen. With the US proving its ability to reuse launch vehicle recently and the ISRO step towards achieving its own space travel just got even more exciting.
