Indian Space Research Organization has gained yet another milestone by successful launch of its maiden space shuttle on early Monday. ISRO launched its first ever Reusable Launch Vehicle – Technology Demonstrator (RLV -TD) from First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota situated in Andhra Pradesh at 7 am. This space shuttle is India’s first winged body aerospace vehicle operating in hypersonic flight regime.
After 20 minutes of its launch, ISRO announced the accomplishment of this mission. Total flight duration from launch to landing of the delta winged RLV-TD, lasted for about 770 seconds. The 6.5 metre-long and 1.7 tonne winged RLV-TD model was made & built at a cost of Rs 95 crore by a team of 600 ISRO scientists at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. This RLV-TD mission aims to help reduce the launch cost by 80%. With this mission, ISRO became the only space agency to be developing reusable systems. Many other major space powers including US (NASA), Russia (Roscomos), Japan (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have also established their reusable launch programs in different stages of development.
Indian Space Research Organization or ISRO plans to test two more such models before the final version which will be about six times larger at around 40 metres and will take off around 2030. On this first flight, the RLV-TD will not be recovered but the data collected will be used to improve the designs, paving the runway to the final model.
ISRO Chairman, Kiran Kumar said, “The RLV is a mechanism for us to bring down the cost of launch. We intend to go through a series of technology demonstration exercises, the first one of which we call HEX-01, that is a hypersonic experiment. It is called a winged body.”
“Therefore, we are designing for the first time a winged body, which will come back from space. It will be carried up on a solid rocket motor. In addition, this is the first of a series of experiments and we still have a long way to go till we reach the actual RLV, which will give us a tremendous capacity in terms of launching at a very low cost,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the team of ISRO scientists on the accomplishment of this mission. In his tweet, he said “Launch of India’s first indigenous space shuttle RLV-TD is the result of the industrious efforts of our scientists. Congratulations to them.” “The dynamism & dedication with which our scientists & @isro have worked over the years is exceptional and very inspiring,” the Prime Minister added.