India moves one step further towards owning ‘space shuttle’

Chennai: India on Sunday moved a step ahead in getting its own reusable launch vehicle or reusable rocket (simply put similar to space shuttle) with the country's space agency successfully completing the Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX).

The test was conducted at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, Karnataka in the early hours on April 2, 2023.

The Indian space agency ISRO said the adaptation of contemporary technologies developed for RLV LEX makes other operational rockets more cost-effective.

In a first in the world, a winged body has been carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by a helicopter and released for carrying out an autonomous landing on a runway.

According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the RLV took off at 7:10 a.m. IST by a Chinook Helicopter of the Indian Air Force as an underslung load and flew to a height of 4.5 km (above the mean seal level-MSL).

Once the predetermined pillbox parameters were attained, based on the RLV's Mission Management Computer command, the RLV was released in mid-air, at a down range of 4.6 km.

The Indian space agency said the release conditions included 10 parameters covering position, velocity, altitude and body rates and others.

The release of RLV was autonomous. RLV then performed approach and landing maneuvers using the integrated navigation, guidance & control system and completed an autonomous landing on the ATR air strip at 7:40 a.m. IST. With that, ISRO successfully achieved the autonomous landing of a space vehicle.

The autonomous landing was carried out under the exact conditions of a Space Re-entry vehicle's landing - high speed, unmanned, precise landing from the same return path - as if the vehicle arrives from space.