Isro launches reusable spacecraft prototype, India closer to shuttle

Chennai/Bengaluru: With a scaled down version of a reusable launch vehicle-technology demonstrator (RLV-TD), Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Monday successfully flight-tested the country's first winged spacecraft.
The programme will take at least a decade before the country has operational RLVs, allowing what are essentially shuttles to blast into space, deploy satellites and return to earth — cutting the cost of space missions to just a 10th of the current cost.
With a HS9 solid rocket booster, the vehicle roared into space at 7am at five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The rocket reached an altitude of 56km in 91.1 seconds, at which point the vehicle separated from the booster.
After hitting a peak altitude of 65km, the vehicle began its descent and glided down to its defined landing spot over the Bay of Bengal, around 450km from Sriharikota. The entire flight lasted 12 minutes and 8 seconds.
"While the eventual goal is to be able to take astronauts into space and bring them back safely, the immediate aim is to cut launch costs with with reusable vehicles," Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar said.
The country's current launch vehicles disintegrate after they inject satellite into orbit.
While the flight tested several technologies including the vehicle's ability to land in a predetermined spot, Isro scientists are already planning a next experiment in which the vehicle will land like an aircraft on a hard surface.
Isro on Monday also tested other technologies critical in the operation of the vehicle like navigation, guidance and control systems, a reusable thermal protection system that let the plane survive high temperatures and re-entry mission management.
"We achieved a near accurate landing on the sea in this flight," Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, director K Sivan said. "Overall, we have received good data and it has given us the confidence. But we have to analyse the data before we move on to the next experiment."
He said it would take more time for the scientists to prepare for the next flight test, as the hard landing experiment will require a 5km-long runway which they are yet to have constructed. The longest runway in the country is about 2km.
The vehicle Isro launched on Monday is only a sixth of the size of the actual vehicle the space agency plans to build. The technologies it tests will, however, be essential for the scientists to build a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) fully-reusable launch vehicle that they can use multiple times.
Announcing that it has "accomplished" its mission, Isro cautiously described it as a "very preliminary step".
That's because Monday's test is a long way from advanced TSTO technology that, as Prof UR Rao told TOI earlier, will consist of two stages: the first, in which an advanced air-breathing propulsion system will take the payload high up into the atmosphere, and the second stage, which will take it farther, put the payload into the orbit and return.