India's Hypersonic Aircraft Dream Inches Closer to Reality

[Sheikh Hussain]

Simulated Imagery

CHENNAI: The re-usable launch vehicle designed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) could boost India’s dream of building a hypersonic aircraft, say space scientists. India is testing a model of re-usable launch vehicle where the hypersonic flight characteristics and guidance system of the vehicle will be tested.
Talking to Express on the sidelines of All India Federation of Master Printers-RICOH National Awards for Excellence in Printing here on Friday, K Sivan, director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, said that India’s mettle in space exploration would be proven during the demonstration of a model of re-usable launch vehicle by the end of this year.

Talking about the launch of the model of re-usable launch vehicle, Sivan said that it will be one-sixth of the size of aircraft. The model will be a hypersonic flight experiment, where the hypersonic flight characteristics and guidance systems of the vehicle would be tested. “We will be testing the aerodynamics of hypersonic speed vehicle,” said Sivan.

He said that the re-usable launch vehicle was crucial for Indian space research and would reduce the cost drastically.

He said that usually the cost of launching a satellite was Rs 300 crore. “Of that, only 20 per cent is the propellant cost, the rest is hardware which falls into the sea,” said Sivan.

What the agency is planning is a launch vehicle that will return and land like an aircraft rather than falling into the sea. “If successful, this would reduce the cost of space exploration as we can reuse the same hardware again to launch the satellite,” said Sivan. “If successful, the cost of launching space missions would come down by 80 per cent,” he said.

However, to develop a re-usable launch vehicle, India would need 20 to 30 critical technology breakthroughs. Some of these include thermal protection system, mission management where the aircraft can be flown pilotless, Sivan added.

 

[Thorough Pro]

looks like lazy Tejas getting fatter riding on the back of trucks. LOL

 

[SR-91]

looks like lazy Tejas getting fatter riding on the back of trucks. LOL

Congrats to SUPARCO, for being the elder brother of ISRO. SUPARCO was established in SEP. 1961 while ISRO was established in AUG 1969. We want u to know, We look up to our big brother. It was because of your guidance, we have excelled in our space program.

 

[Green Angel]

....

 

[Luca1]

It look like a shrink down version of space shuttle with ISRO photo shop on it.

 

[migflug]

It look like a shrink down version of space shuttle with ISRO photo shop on it.

Both are quite similar in looks. But space is far more sophisticated .so no comparison here

 

[skysthelimit]

It look like a shrink down version of space shuttle with ISRO photo shop on it.

Well first, this is the product of the (not so) fertile imagination of the website's graphics department and not the actual thing.

But the AVATAR RLV wind tunnel models do look similar to the space shuttles - since they are solving the same engineering problems, both NASA and ISRO/DRDO have gravitated to the most efficient designs

 

[GR!FF!N]

It look like a shrink down version of space shuttle with ISRO photo shop on it.

Looks similar,works differently..


whatever..it is already in making..

India to Conduct its First Hypersonic Flight Experiment (HEX-01) for AVATAR RLV-TD in March!

 

[$@rJen]

looks like lazy Tejas getting fatter riding on the back of trucks. LOL

. this is ISRO, remember that... They've pulled off something that no other space agency did..