Made in India shuttle launched

India on Monday successfully launched its maiden “swadeshi” space shuttle with the winged Reusable Launch Vehicle.

It thereby fulfilled its mission objectives in the first crucial test to make space travel easier and cheaper in future. With the test-firing of the indigenous unmanned model space shuttle — the size of a Sports Utility Vehicle — by the Indian Space Research Organisation from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, India has joined the race to develop reusable spacecraft to put satellites into orbit after US’ Nasa stopped its Space Shuttle programme in 2011.

The double delta-winged flight vehicle RLV Technology Demonstrator was hoisted into the atmosphere on the special rocket booster for a peak altitude of over 65 km and released for its re-entry into the atmosphere before its splashdown in the Bay of Bengal.

The total flight duration of the 6.5-metre long “aeroplane”-like structure from launch to landing lasted about 770 seconds, Isro said.

From a 65 km altitude, RLV-TD began its descent followed by atmospheric re-entry at around Mach 5—five times the speed of sound—with the vehicle’s navigation, guidance and control system accurately steering it during this phase for safe descent, Isro said in a statement. After successfully surviving high temperatures of re-entry with the help of its Thermal Protection System (TPS), RLV-TD successfully glided down to the defined landing spot .