- Another feather in the Make-in India cap
New Delhi.22 May, 2016. Today is a red letter day in the history of ISRO. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its indigenous version of a ‘space shuttle’, hundred percent made-in-India, from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
RLV-TD is a series of technology demonstration missions that have been considered as a first step towards realising a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully reusable vehicle.In preliminary mission, a suborbital one, a double-delta winged vehicle, which more or less resembles an aircraft, was launched.The 6.5 meter-long vehicle, having a mass of 1.75 tonne, is expected to go up to around 70 km after which it is expected to descend at a particular point on the sea.
Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstration Program or RLV-TD is a series of technology demonstration missions that have been considered as a first step towards realizing a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully re-usable vehicle. A Winged Reusable Launch Vehicle technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) has been configured to act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, namely, hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion.
These technologies will be developed in phases through a series of experimental flights. The first in the series of experimental flights is the hypersonic flight experiment (HEX) followed by the landing experiment (LEX), return flight experiment (REX) and scramjet propulsion experiment (SPEX). Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator Hypersonic Experiment (RLV-TD HEX1) wherein the hypersonic aero-thermo dynamic characterization of winged re-entry body along with autonomous mission management to land at a specified location and characterization of hot structures are planned to be demonstrated.
The final version of the RLV-TD is expected to take 10-15 years.
