6 ms·

Very impressive, but It's not a fully reusable rocket (in the SpaceX sense), but it looks more like a reusable ship, like the columbia space shuttle. > May 23,

by vmarsy 10y ago

Very impressive, but It's not a fully reusable rocket (in the SpaceX sense), but it looks more like a reusable ship, like the columbia space shuttle. > May 23, 2016 ISRO successfully flight tested India’s first winged body aerospace vehicle operating in hypersonic flight regime. > In this experimental mission, the HS9 solid rocket booster carrying RLV-TD lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota at 07:00hr IST. After a successful flight of 91.1second, HS9 burn out occurred, following which both HS9 and RLV-TD mounted on its top coasted to a height of about 56 km. At that height, RLV-TD separated from HS9 booster and further ascended to a height of about 65km So the solid rocket booster, HS9, wasn't reusable. What looks more interesting to me is: > The vehicle’s Navigation, Guidance and Control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent Was it unmanned? On Autopilot? Pictures and details: http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/rlv-td http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/rlv-td EDIT: according to Wikipedia, the ultimate goal seems to be a fully reusable setup: > The demonstration trials will pave the way for a two-stage-to-orbit (TSTO) fully re-usable launch vehicle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Flight_Experiment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Flight_Experiment

nathancahill 10y ago
Yes, title should be: "India's first winged body aerospace vehicle successfully flight tested"
frandroid 10y ago
So this is like the space shuttle in concept, right?
- creshal 10y ago
  Right now it's more comparable to the X-37B. It's not quite clear what the further steps are going to be, India has floated a lot of concepts and seems to be still figuring out which can be pursued further.
- swatkat 10y ago
  As per current plans, this winged body will be the first stage of a future TSTO (two stage to orbit) launch vehicle. This winged body first stage will have cryo/kerolox engines for vertical takeoff, and scramjet engine for gliding down and landing on an airstrip after stage separation. This prototype was intended to test aerodynamics of winged body at Mach 5+ speeds and to evaluate flight control and navigation systems.
the8472 10y ago
Also this was a sub-orbital flight, aiui that places far less stress on a vehicle since they don't have to shed orbital kinetic energy.
jessriedel 10y ago
> Was it unmanned? On Autopilot? Note that the US Air Force has a re-usable winged unmanned spacecraft that plays a somewhat analogous role to the now-defunct Space Shuttle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-14/a-supersecret-spacecraft-comes-back-to-earth-after-two-years http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-14/a-supersec...
- avar 10y ago
  The X-37 is launched by a conventional rocket as payload and just lands like a normal aircraft. It's more analogous to a reusable space capsule than it is to the space shuttle which mostly launched itself.
  - jessriedel 10y ago
    "Mostly" is quite a stretch, since the shuttle is completely dependent not only only the fuel in the external tank, but also on the solid rocket boosters. Indeed, the solid boosters composed the majority of the launch weight and provided the majority of the thrust. For the first couple of minutes, the shuttle was mostly just along for the ride (just as the X-37 is completely along for the ride on the Atlas). The key analogous role I'm referring to is the ability to deploy, capture, and return payloads to Earth, which is shared by the X-37 and the shuttle. It's not a coincidence that the Air Force developed the X-37 when the shuttle retired.
    - ballooney 10y ago
      A very HN correction here but 'space shuttle' refers to the whole stack (orbiter and fel tank and SRBs) and what you seem to be referring to as the 'space shuttle' is actually called the orbiter, a component of the space shuttle. But everyone gets it wrong. Mobile makes it difficult to add links but its explained on the wikipedia article for the space shuttle orbiter, a distinct article from the space shuttle.
      - 10y ago
hiou 10y ago
> The vehicle’s Navigation, Guidance and Control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent Fortunately, that isn't directly applicable to ballistic missiles and certainly couldn't have anything to do with this project. /s
- swatkat 10y ago
  India's defense R&D unit, DRDO, already has a couple of hypersonic vehicle and missile projects[0][1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Technology_Demonstrator_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Technology_Demonstr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos-II

by vmarsy 10y ago

nathancahill 10y ago

Yes, title should be: "India's first winged body aerospace vehicle successfully flight tested"

frandroid 10y ago

So this is like the space shuttle in concept, right?

creshal 10y ago
Right now it's more comparable to the X-37B. It's not quite clear what the further steps are going to be, India has floated a lot of concepts and seems to be still figuring out which can be pursued further.
swatkat 10y ago
As per current plans, this winged body will be the first stage of a future TSTO (two stage to orbit) launch vehicle. This winged body first stage will have cryo/kerolox engines for vertical takeoff, and scramjet engine for gliding down and landing on an airstrip after stage separation. This prototype was intended to test aerodynamics of winged body at Mach 5+ speeds and to evaluate flight control and navigation systems.

the8472 10y ago

Also this was a sub-orbital flight, aiui that places far less stress on a vehicle since they don't have to shed orbital kinetic energy.

jessriedel 10y ago

> Was it unmanned? On Autopilot? Note that the US Air Force has a re-usable winged unmanned spacecraft that plays a somewhat analogous role to the now-defunct Space Shuttle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-14/a-supersecret-spacecraft-comes-back-to-earth-after-two-years http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-14/a-supersec...

avar 10y ago
The X-37 is launched by a conventional rocket as payload and just lands like a normal aircraft. It's more analogous to a reusable space capsule than it is to the space shuttle which mostly launched itself.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  "Mostly" is quite a stretch, since the shuttle is completely dependent not only only the fuel in the external tank, but also on the solid rocket boosters. Indeed, the solid boosters composed the majority of the launch weight and provided the majority of the thrust. For the first couple of minutes, the shuttle was mostly just along for the ride (just as the X-37 is completely along for the ride on the Atlas). The key analogous role I'm referring to is the ability to deploy, capture, and return payloads to Earth, which is shared by the X-37 and the shuttle. It's not a coincidence that the Air Force developed the X-37 when the shuttle retired.
  - ballooney 10y ago
    A very HN correction here but 'space shuttle' refers to the whole stack (orbiter and fel tank and SRBs) and what you seem to be referring to as the 'space shuttle' is actually called the orbiter, a component of the space shuttle. But everyone gets it wrong. Mobile makes it difficult to add links but its explained on the wikipedia article for the space shuttle orbiter, a distinct article from the space shuttle.
    - 10y ago

hiou 10y ago

> The vehicle’s Navigation, Guidance and Control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent Fortunately, that isn't directly applicable to ballistic missiles and certainly couldn't have anything to do with this project. /s

swatkat 10y ago
India's defense R&D unit, DRDO, already has a couple of hypersonic vehicle and missile projects[0][1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Technology_Demonstrator_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Technology_Demonstr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahMos-II