India Launches Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Mission

Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator mission has been launched by the Indian Space Research Organization. The flight has led to the reusable space plane that made a sub-orbital mission to collect in-flight information.  

The Reusable Launch Vehicle was prompted by the search to build a reusable spaceflight in a phased method towards the formal presentation of the new winged, Two-Stage To Orbit launch vehicle.  In relation to this development pattern, ISRO built a four-flight test series to test the different flight characteristics that its underdeveloped Reusable Launch Vehicle will encounter on a flight and the scramjet propulsion engines being planned to be used for the launch vehicle.

Among the four-flight test series is the Hypersonic Flight Experiment or HEX, and according to reports, the mission that launched was the HEX - the initial test in the flight series. This mission deployed a scaled prototype, which is referred to as the Reusable Launch Vehicle - Technology Demonstrator, or RLV-TD from the reusable launch vehicle design, according to Indian Express.

The RLV-TD was installed on top of a 9-ton, 1 meter diameter of solid booster, or HS9 and was launched from the initial launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in India.  Meanwhile, the HS9 booster launched the RLV-TD past the majority of the Earth's lower atmosphere. Following its 90-second burn, the booster sent the RLV-TD to the right altitude prior to detaching from the prototype, falling back to Earth in the Bay of Bengal.

The Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator continued on as it falls back into the atmosphere of the Earth at Hypersonic velocity. During the Hypersonic test, the reusable launch pad pitched up in proportion to the direction and the horizon of the travel. This has allowed the engineers to collect important in-flight data concerning the vehicle's thermal protection system performance, the aerodynamic attributes during the Hypersonic flight and to take note of the general design of the subsequent full-scale RLV, Space Flight Now reported.