ISRO's Reusable Launch Vehicles

[Akask kumar]

..but I think DRDO's initial collaborator Taneja Aerospace (Ciam Technologies) chickened out !!

sorry i messed up my comment i mistakenly took hyperplane for hypersonic missiles..i have deleted my comment..BTW thnx 4 info.. it seems Avatar will take a lot of time to develop..

 

[Chinmoy]

may be there wont be 4 different engines.. we can have a hybrid engine that work differently at different altitudes..like SKYLON of ESA.. it uses a hybrid sabre engines .. see the video for getting an idea what a SSTO is .. dnt mix it with shuttle..

Right.............. Now we are trying to develop a hybrid engine. Not only we but US, UK Russia, China are in the race too. But till now we have not been able to do so. Even SABRE used by SKYLON has not yet been perfected. So I think as of now if we do launch any RLV, it would make use of the traditional Rocket engine along with RAMJET.

 

[Akask kumar]

Right.............. Now we are trying to develop a hybrid engine. Not only we but US, UK Russia, China are in the race too. But till now we have not been able to do so. Even SABRE used by SKYLON has not yet been perfected. So I think as of now if we do launch any RLV, it would make use of the traditional Rocket engine along with RAMJET.

for testing only.. either rocket or piggy back riding jumbo jets..but the final model will be SSTO ,totally on its own... so far no country has produced it, all are still developing it. its a tough nut to crack..

 

[Chinmoy]

for testing only.. either rocket or piggy back riding jumbo jets..but the final model will be SSTO ,totally on its own... so far no country has produced it, all are still developing it. its a tough nut to crack..

Going by the article and whatever is there in net, it should be a rocket engine for takeoff as of now.

 

[Akask kumar]

Going by the article and whatever is there in net, it should be a rocket engine for takeoff as of now.

"AS OF NOW" -- means testing.. the whole idea of SSTO is to remove rocket dependency --rockets are costly..making going to space a costly business..US and EU will have it before us..

 

[Godless-Kafir]

Is the rlv going to be tested this year? If so how much of the technology has matured and what are the details of its technology?

 

[HariPrasad-1]

Yes...........I think it would use rocket booster to propel itself before switching on to RAMJET and then to SCRAMJET. Because technically RAMJET wouldnot work in subsonic speed. You would need to propel it to supersonic speed first so that RAMJET could work and take over from there.

Ramjet can only be used in Atmosphere as it uses oxygen from air. It will not work after few minutes of take off. We can use it in atmosphere.

 

[Chinmoy]

Ramjet can only be used in Atmosphere as it uses oxygen from air. It will not work after few minutes of take off. We can use it in atmosphere.

Yes........ But in theory it could work if you are traveling in supersonic speed. That means you do need some serious initial thrust to start off at first .

 

[sasum]

Yes........ But in theory it could work if you are traveling in supersonic speed. That means you do need some serious initial thrust to start off at first .

What you are talking is the principle of Ramjet. A ramjet has no blades and no shaft... air comes in the front and is compressed as the tube narrows... fuel is added and burned which heats the air and generates thrust. Much like a oxy-welding torch.
That is OK..but in the context of RLV, once you are out of earth's atmosphere (into space) , where do you get oxygen-rich air for combustion?

 

[Chinmoy]

What you are talking is the principle of Ramjet. A ramjet has no blades and no shaft... air comes in the front and is compressed as the tube narrows... fuel is added and burned which heats the air and generates thrust. Much like a oxy-welding torch.
That is OK..but in the context of RLV, once you are out of earth's atmosphere (into space) , where do you get oxygen-rich air for combustion?

What I mentioned is in context of a Hybrid engine like SABRE, which could be used as single engine for RLV instead of multiple rocket engine. But ofcourse in space you would have to rely on the old rocket engine to propel or in something like the ION thruster.

 

[Abhijeet Dey]

What is the latest status of RLV-TD??????

 

[Indx TechStyle]

What is the latest status of RLV-TD??????

Must fly this March-April, first HEX on a sounding rocket according to schedule and further experiments will be carried for many years, till a ready to use plane is ready for use.

 

[Mikesingh]

May 16 2016 : The Times of India (Chennai)

For the very first time in its history, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is actually growing wings as it embarks this month on a never before space flight that would make history .

The Indian space agency is all set to undertake the maiden launch of its very own indigenous version of a `space shuttle', a fully made-in-India effort.

A sleek winged body almost the weight and size of a sports utility vehicle (SUV) is being given final touches at Sriharikota.

Yes, the big powers abandoned the idea of a winged reusable launch vehicle but India's frugal engineers believe the solution to reducing cost of launching satellites into orbit is to recycle the rocket or make it reusable. Scientists at Isro believe that they could reduce the cost of launching stuff into space by as much as 10 times if reusable technology succeeds, bringing it down to $2,000 per kg.

if all goes well possibly before the monsoon sets in, the space port at Sriharikota will witness the launch of the indigenous Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD). This will be the first time Isro will launch a space craft, which actually has delta wings and after launch it will be glided back onto a virtual runway in the Bay of Bengal.


http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/...l-set-to-launch-reusable-rocke-16052016011038

Here's some gen on the RLT-TD

ISRO's RLV-TD

A winged Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) has been configured to act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, viz., hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air breathing propulsion towards realising a Two Stage to Orbit (TSTO) fully Reusable Launch Vehicle.

Major milestones reach for the RLV-TD include:

• Completion of major actions identified by the National Review Committee during the Integrated Technical Review (ITR) of hypersonic experimental flight (RLV-TD HEX-01).
• Mission analyses on the design of trajectory, autopilot and guidance have been completed.
• The Avionics Bay powering for the Avionics packages in the Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (TDV) was carried out through Checkout System and On-Board Checkout Computer (OBCC).
• The second phase of the full scale Flush Air Data System (FADS) model was successfully tested and validated at the Wind Tunnel Facility, IIT, Kanpur with modified algorithms and recalibrated sensors.
• Radar Altimeter along with antenna was also validated through a Balloon test at TATA Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Hyderabad and the capability of the system has been demonstrated.
• Trial assembly of Thermal Protection System for qualifying the bonding procedure and trial assembly of Booster with Interstage and TDV have been completed.
• The realisation of the flight hardware and its assembly and integration is in progress. The launch of RLV-TD HEX-01 mission is planned in 2014.

The main objectives of this test flight are:

1 - Validating the aerodynamic design characteristics during Hypersonic flight.
2 - Characterize induced loads during the Hypersonic re-entry into the atmosphere.
3 - Recovery of the HEX vehicle from the sea.
4 - Assess the performance of the carbon fibre used in construction of the nose of the vehicle.
5 - Demonstrating First Stage separation sequencing.
RLV-TD HEX-01 is the first out of four in the series of test flights. HEX-01 stands for Hypersonic Flight Experiment.The other four tests are:
1 - LEX (Landing Experiment)
2 - REX (Return Flight Experiment)
3 - SPEX (Scramjet Propulsion Experiment)

The RLV-TD will possess wings and tail fins, and will be launched atop a 9 ton solid booster called S-9, similar to the ones on the PSLV. RLV-TD is reported to be 9m long, with its wing span also measuring 9m. The RLV-TD plus the S9 Solid Rocket Booster stack will together weigh 12-ton. Following liftoff, the S-9 booster will climb to 100-km and accelerate several times the speed of sound with the RLV-TD. RLV-TD will then separate and glide down using its fin and wing controls and will land in the Bay of Bengal, close to the shore. Thewater landing is planned because India doesn't have a long enough runway which is more than 5 Km in length.

The next experiment would be to land the vehicle on a 2km runway after releasing it from an aircraft from a height of about 5km. The third step would be to take it to a higher altitude and try the ground landing.

Way to go ISRO!!

Cheers!

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Isro to test launch India's first spaceplane on May 23

 

[Kshatriya87]

Isro set to make history: India to be fifth nation to launch its own space shuttle

http://www.firstpost.com/india/isro...n-space-shuttle-2785156.html?utm_source=fp_hp

 

[lupgain]

Awesome Dude two days to go ..... (May 23 , 9:30 am)

Below is news Section from The Hindu...

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...icle-to-take-off-next-week/article8608302.ece

The first technology demonstrator (TD) launch of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), or the spaceplane in popular parlance, will take place on May 23 at 9.30 a.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, according to ISRO officials.

Visually, the RLV-TD is a rocket-aircraft combination measuring about 17 m, whose first stage is a solid propellant booster rocket and the second stage is a 6.5 m long aircraft-like winged structure sitting atop the rocket.

A misnomer

However, the popular perception of the technology as a marriage between rocket and aircraft is a misnomer.

In RLV-TD that is awaiting launch at SHAR, the first stage, weighing about 9 tonnes, is merely the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3) flown in the 1980s.

The vehicle will take off like a rocket and the RLV will be taken to a height of 70 km and where the booster will release the vehicle to carry out its manoeuvres.

Hypersonic Experiment 1

According to Dr. K. Sivan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvanathapuram, where the RLV was designed, assembled and where it underwent basic electrical, hydraulic and “sign check” tests, the objective is to achieve hypersonic speeds to basically test the hypersonic aero-thermodynamic characterisation of the winged body’s re-entry, its control and guidance systems, autonomous mission management to land at a specific location at sea and testing of “hot structures” that make up the structure of the RLV.

The test is, therefore, termed as Hypersonic Experiment 1 (HEX-1).

Complex technology

A conventional launch vehicle (LV), says Dr. Sivan, spends the lowest time of its flight in the atmosphere, whereas the RLV system spends all the time in the atmosphere. Also, while an aircraft experiences limited flight regime of say Mach 0 to Mach 2 or so, the RLV experiences a much wider range of flight regimes.

Hence the technology of an RLV is much more complex basically arising from the design of the control and guidance systems, he pointed out.


In HEX1, the winged RLV is otherwise a dummy with no powered flight of its own. In this test, the RLV will attain a flight regime of Mach 5 with the help of the booster alone, Dr. Sivan said. At the end of the HEX1 mission, the aircraft will land in sea. The total flight duration of the RLV-TD from launch till splash down will be about 10 mins.

However, the ultimate objective of the RLV programme of ISRO is to enable the vehicle traverse a very wide range of flight regimes from Mach 0 to Mach 25 based on air-breathing propulsion for achieving two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) launch capability.

The integrated test system (booster plus the RLV-TD) is already at the SDSC (SDSC), Sriharikota. Prior to being moved to Sriharikota, the RLV subsystem underwent acoustic tests at the National Aerospace Laboratories of the CSIR (CSIR-NAL) and the booster went as a separate subsystem directly from VSSC. At SDSC the two were mated together.

Dr. A.S. Kiran Kumar, ISRO Chairman, called the first test launch HEX1 “a very preliminary step” and stressed that “we have to go a long way” before it could be called a re-usable launch system. “But these are very essential steps we have to take,” he said.

Lower cost

Asked whether the Indian reusable launch system was aimed at bringing down the launch cost, the ISRO Chairman said, “It will bring down the cost. Towards that, we will have to work and go through these initial steps,” the Chairman said.

Flying test bed

The present design is basically “a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, namely hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion using a scramjet engine”, according to ISRO website.

The HEX series of experiments will be followed by the landing experiment (LEX), return flight experiment and scramjet propulsion experiment (SPEX).

The basic design of a scramjet has already been evolved.

A test launch of the engine aboard a sounding rocket, which will achieve a flight regime of up to Mach 8, will take place some place in June at SHAR, Dr. Sivan said.

 

[Gessler]

Some new images of the RLV-TD prototype being fitted out - thanks to Pallava Bagla for the pictures, visit the link for more.

^^ Flush Air Data System (FADS) on the nose

http://www.gettyimages.in/galleries/photographers/pallava_bagla

@Indx TechStyle @PARIKRAMA @Tactical Frog @abingdonboy

 

[Abhi9]

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[Indx TechStyle]

Isro all set to test the `desi space shuttle' on May 23

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a first-ofits-kind indigenous space mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is all set for the launch of Re-usable Satellite Launch VehicleTechnology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) on May 23. It is cheered as a baby step towards the historic launch of the advanced RLV by 2020.

After a series of tests at the sub-system level such as actuator and flight control tests, followed by integration of the shuttle parts with electronic tests in March this year, RLV-TD was sent to National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in Bengaluru for acoustics testing. Now, the space shuttle is at Sriharikota spaceport and the final mission readiness tests are being conducted for its launch, which is tentatively scheduled for May 23, VSSC director K Sivan said.

"RLV-TD is a baby step towards the launch of the advanced RLV with air breathing propulsion system (ABPS) and reusable launch vehicle technology. The purpose of developing advanced RLV with ABPS is to reduce the cost of space launches, if engines and structures are recovered and re-used.Current RLV-TD has no recovery plans," he said.

Current RLV-TD incurs a project cost of Rs 95 crore. The advanced RLV with ABPS uses atmospheric air as oxidizer for combustion, with vehicle fuel to propel the rocket, and it can bring down space travel cost by 110th and eventually by 1100th later.

"With the first-of-its-kind delta wings that makes supersonic flights feasible, this space shuttle RLV-TD that weighs about 1.75 tonnes will be propelled into the atmosphere on a special rocket booster, all built indigenously ," said project director of this mission Shyam Mohan.

After the spacecraft manoeuvres, which includes booster rocket separation when the vehicle ascends and then makes a hypersonic entry which is at five times the speed of sound, it enters a descent phase and glides onto a designated virtual runway in the Bay of Bengal some 500km from the coast.

"A key technology developed by scientists here is the re-usable thermal protection system (TPS) to make materials that can withstand extreme temperatures, that the exterior of the space shuttle will have to bear, when it returns into the dense atmosphere after its journey through near vacuum in space," he said.

It involved developing lightweight heat resistant silica tiles, that are plastered on the underbelly of the spacecraft, that can withstand temperatures up to 7,000 degrees celsius. The first of its kind indigenously developed carbon-carbon nose cap can resist high temperatures up to 2,000 degree celsius, when the vehicle reaches hypersonic speed, added Mohan.

 

[pmaitra]

Wind tunnel testing of miniature RLV

Wind tunnel testing of miniature RLV

Wind tunnel testing of miniature RLV with SLV

RLVs in assembly

RLV and SLV in assembly