ISRO successfully tests the atmospheric re-entry of a crew module after its heaviest launch vehicle GSLV Mark-III blasts off from Sriharikota.
Taking its baby steps towards realising India’s ambition to send humans
into space, ISRO on Thursday successfully tested the atmospheric
re-entry of a crew module after its heaviest launch vehicle GSLV
Mark-III blasted off from Sriharikota.
Exactly 5.4 minutes after liftoff at 9.30 a.m. from the second launch
pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, the module separated
from the rocket at an altitude of 126 km and re-entered Earth’s
atmosphere (about 80 km from sea level).
It descended in a ballistic mode and splashed down into the Bay of
Bengal, some 180 km from Indira Point, the southern tip of the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands.
The LVM3-X flight with active S200 and L110 propulsion stages and a
passive C25 stage with dummy engine, carried CARE (Crew Module
Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment) as its payload.
Weighing over three tonnes, the 2.7-metre tall cup cake shaped crew
module with a diameter of 3.1 metres, which features aluminium alloy
internal structure with composite panels and ablative thermal protection
systems, was made to safely drop down into the sea by specially-made
parachutes from Agra-based DRDO lab Aerial Delivery Research and
Development Establishment.
The experiment also witnessed the largest parachute in action ever made
in the country. The main parachute, which helped the crew module touch
the waters at around 7 metre/second speed, was 31 metres in diameter.
Soon after the successful test flight, a delighted ISRO Chairman K.
Radhakrishnan said, “This was a very significant day in the history of
Indian space programme for the development of the advanced launch
vehicle that could carry a 4-tonne class of communication satellite into
orbit.”
The crew module, which can carry up to two to three astronauts,
withstood a heat of around 1,600°C, while it travelled towards the
surface of the Earth attracted by gravity.
The module would be tracked by Indian Coast Guard ships and then taken
to Kamarajar Port in Ennore near Chennai, from where it would be shifted
to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala for
further study.
This experimental mission has helped ISRO with two primary lessons -- to
study the flight validation of the complex atmospheric flight regime of
LVM3 vehicle and study the re-entry characteristics of CARE crew
module.
“India started the development process a decade ago and just now we
completed the first experimental flight of the GSLV Mark-III vehicle
christened as LVM Mark-III,” Radhakrishnan said from the Mission Control
Centre.
“The performance of the two solid stages S200 as well as the liquid core stage L110 was as expected,” he said.
“We also had another experimental module in this mission that is the
unmanned crew module test to understand the re-entry characteristics.
That also worked extremely well and the crew module has splashed down as
expected in Bay of Bengal,” he said.
Mr. Radhakrishnan thanked the entire team for making the project
possible and added “with the completion of the development of the high
thrust cryogenic engine which has progressed very well, we expect to
come back with a developmental flight of this vehicle LVM-3 in another
two years.”
This is the first time ISRO was carrying a payload weighing over three
tonne. The national space agency’s first space recovery experiment
(SRE-1) module, launched by a PSLV rocket in January 2007, weighed only
555 kg and that too was not a crew module.
Though it would take at least 10 years for India to send humans into
space, this experiment has helped the space agency to test the module
for safe return of humans from space, according to ISRO.
While the heavy duty cryogenic engine is still under development in one
of the ISRO labs at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu, today’s attempt was to
primarily study the atmospheric performance of GSLV Mark-III in the
first two stages.
Once ISRO masters its GSLV Mark-III, the country can save a massive
amount of the foreign exchange it presently is spending to send its
heavy communication satellites through other space agencies aboard.
The heavy launch vehicle would also help India earn considerable foreign
exchange by sending heavy satellites for other countries, in addition
to the revenue PSLV rockets are already securing for ISRO’s commercial
arm Antrix Corporation Limited.
This CARE module is expected to enhance ISRO’s understanding on re-entry and parachute phases of crew module.
The total budget of the experimental mission was Rs. 155 crore, including the crew module, which cost Rs. 15 crore.
0 comments:
Post a Comment