India to launch first recoverable spacecraft
Friday, 13 August 2004, 19:30 IST
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BANGALORE: India will join an elite club of nations with the launch next year of its first recoverable and reusable spacecraft in polar orbit. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is completing preparations for the launch of the spacecraft to be used for conducting zero gravity experiments in a reusable capsule. With it, India will join the elite club of six nations that have the technology and domain expertise. The six countries are the US, France, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union (the European Space Agency). "We will be sending a recoverable spacecraft of 500 kg into the orbit using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). It will be retained for over a month to conduct zero gravity experiments in metal melting, composites and microbes for biological tests. The spacecraft will be manoeuvred to re-enter the atmosphere and land it safely on earth for retrieving the experimental data from its capsule and its reuse subsequently," ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair told IANS at the space agency headquarters here. ISRO will be launching the space capsule recovery experiment (SRE) payload as a co-passenger with Cartosat-2 satellite in the second half of 2005 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. "With the 600-kg Cartosat-2 and the 500-kg SRE vehicle, the combined payload of the PSLV will be able between 1.1-1.2 tonnes. The SRE spacecraft will be positioned in the polar orbit at about 650 km above earth," Nair stated. The spacecraft can also be recovered from sea using the floatation system. The SRE payload is being developed at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram in collaboration with the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore. Development of technologies for future reusable launch vehicles (RLV) is also being considered. In the run-up to the actual launch, ISRO successfully conducted a preliminary test last week at Sriharikota to assess the capability of precision landing by a model spacecraft after orbiting the earth. "A model of the spacecraft was dropped from a defence helicopter from a height of five kilometres at Sriharikota and was made to land it in the nearby Pulikot lake. Its three parachutes opened simultaneously with textbook precision. The vehicle was retrieved from the lake subsequently," Nair disclosed. Another space capsule will be launched soon over the sea to conduct a real-time experiment. After orbiting the earth for a few days, it will be brought down for safe landing in sea. ISRO plans to re-launch the same into the earth's orbit for repeating the experiment, including de-orbiting for its re-entry into the earth's atmosphere subsequently. "The SRE capsule will have four major hardware: aero-thermo structure, spacecraft platform, deceleration and floatation system and micro-gravity payloads. "We have planned two micro-gravity experiments -- quasi crystal growth and biomimetic material synthesis -- to be conducted in the polar orbit," a senior ISRO official said.
Source: IANS
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