Context (ET |NDTV | TH): ISRO has successfully carried out the landing mission of ‘Pushpak’Reusable Landing Vehicle Landing Experiment (RLV LEX) 02 from the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) in Challakere near Karnataka’s Chitradurga.
The RLV LEX 02 landing experiment is the second of the series of experiments conducted by the space agency under the Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) programme.
RLV-LEX-02 demonstrated the autonomous landing capability of RLV off-nominal initial conditions at the release from a Chinook helicopter.
The winged body and all flight systems used in RLV-LEX-01 were reused in the RLV-LEX-02 mission.
‘Pushpak’
Pushpak, dubbed the “swadeshi space shuttle” is India’s futuristic Reusable Launch Vehicle.
The rocket’s name comes from the ‘Pushpak Viman’ of the Ramayana, which is known as the Vehicle of Kuber, Lord of Wealth.
It is designed as an all-rocket, fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) vehicle, incorporating several major elements such as the X-33 advanced technology demonstrator, the X-34 testbed technology demonstrator and the upgraded DC-XA flight demonstrator.
In it, the most expensive part, the upper stage, which houses all the expensive electronics, is made reusable by bringing it back safely back to Earth.
Later, it could even do refuelling of in-orbit satellites or retrieving satellites from orbit for refurbishment.
It also a step towards India’s aim of “minimising space debris” and sets the stage for establishing the Bhartiya Antariksh Station by 2035.
It aims at developing essential technologies for a fully reusable launch vehicle to enable low cost access to space.
The configuration of RLV-TD is similar to that of an aircraft and combines the complexity of both launch vehicles and aircraft.
The winged RLV-TD has been configured to act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, namely, hypersonic flight, autonomous landing and powered cruise flight.
In future, this vehicle will be scaled up to become the first stage of India’s reusable two stage orbital launch vehicle.