Built For Reuse, ISRO Completes Final Landing Test Of Its Winged Launch Vehicle ‘Pushpak’
The winged space vehicle, Pushpak, was released from an Indian Air Force Chinook Helicopter midair at an altitude of 4.5 km, and rolled down the runway as planned. The mission simulated the high-speed, un-manned landing conditions for a vehicle returning from space
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has taken another crucial step ahead and successfully carried out the third and the final landing test of its space-plane — Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) — concluding the long series of landing experiments.
The demonstration was performed at 7:10 am on Sunday at Karnataka’s Aeronautical Test Range in Chitradurga. This time, the space agency had tested the launch vehicle under more challenging release conditions – a cross range of 500 metres against 150 metres used in the previous test, and more severe wind conditions.
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The cost of access to space is the major deterrent in space exploration and ISRO aspires to be the low-cost game-changer for satellite missions. The reusable winged-vehicle – Pushpak — is part of that plan to enable low-cost access to space as its reusability brings down the launch cost significantly compared to an expendable rocket.
Pushpak is essentially a space-plane for launching payloads into low-earth orbit, and the space agency has been working on it since 2016 when it conducted its first experimental mission. The test-mission on Sunday was conducted to test its runway approach and landing capability under slightly more adverse conditions. The mission RLV-LEX-03 simulated how high-speed landing conditions are performed for a vehicle returning from space.
HOW THE TEST WAS PERFORMED
The RLV was taken as an underslung load by an Indian Air Force Chinook Helicopter and released mid-air at an altitude of 4.5 km away from the runway. The unmanned vehicle executed the cross-range correction manoeuvres autonomously, approached the runway and performed a precise horizontal landing at the runway centreline.
“The landing velocity had exceeded 320 kmph, compared to 260 kmph for a commercial aircraft, and 280 kmph for a typical fighter aircraft. After touchdown, it reduced to nearly 100 kmph using its brake parachute, after which the landing gear brakes were employed to decelerate and stop on the runway," said the space agency. The mission was led by J Muthupandian as the Mission Director, while B Karthik was the Vehicle Director.
ISRO scientists said the vehicle utilised its rudder and nose wheel quite effectively in the last phase and achieved a stable and precise ground-roll on the runway. “Through this mission, the advanced guidance algorithm catering to longitudinal and lateral plane error corrections, which is essential for the future orbital re-entry mission, has been validated," said ISRO.
“This consistent success boosts ISRO’s confidence in the critical technologies essential for future orbital re-entry missions," said Dr S Unnikrishnan Nair, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) that led the mission with support from other ISRO centres, as well as Indian Air Force and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.
The specialised vehicle uses multisensory fusion, including sensors, as well as its indigenous navigation system – NAVIC. Notably, the mission also re-used the winged body and flight systems as such without any modification from the previous test, which is also intended to reduce the overall cost of such a mission in future. With the objectives of RLV-LEX (Landing experiments) accomplished, ISRO will now embark into RLV-ORV, the orbital reusable vehicle.
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