EXCLUSIVE: India lands unmanned spaceplane with pin-point accuracy; next destination is space

At 7:40am on Sunday morning, the Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) performed a feat that brought to fruition an idea born 20 years ago — the runway landing of an unmanned, fully autonomous, indigenous space plane.

Known as 'RLV-TD' (Reusable launch vehicle-Technology Demonstrator) the space place was dropped mid-air from an altitude of 4.5km, by an Indian Air Force 'Chinook' tandem-rotor helicopter, from where the space plane glided down, performed autonomous navigation, guidance and control calculations, manoeuvred deftly and landed precisely on a runway athigh speedof 350kmph.

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Top ISRO officials told WION that the plane landed just as planned, perfectly along the runway centreline and the spaceplane is in impeccable condition, at the tarmac in Chitradurga, Karnataka.

"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. RLV is essentially a space plane with a low lift to drag ratio requiring an approach at high glide angles that necessitated a landing at high velocities of 350 kmph," said the Indian Space agency, ISRO.

Post the successful touch-down and landing of the space plane, ISRO ChairmanDr. S. Somanath appreciated the team of Indian scientists. This space plane landing is an effort of Indian Space agency ISRO, India's Defence Research Lab DRDO, and the Indian Air Force, among others.

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"The very first (runway landing) experiment is now successful. I'm very sure it is meeting almost all the objectives that we had defined long back. This will continue, few more landing experiments will be done under different conditions to prove the ruggedness of the software and the hardware that we have put in," said Dr. S. Somanath. He was present along with his team to witness the historic moment.

He added that this was a great opportunity for India to develop an 'ORV' (orbital landing experiment) and that this work was already progressing. ORV is where the same space plane is flown to space atop a rocket and then brought back to land, completely autonomously.

"Today's step is taking us closer to reusable rocket/landing craft for very specific mission goals," he said. India has so far been using expendable rockets that fall back into the sea after launch, once this spaceplane becomes a reality, it would make India among the handful nations that have a re-usable orbital space vehicle.

Explaining the progress of RLV testing, VSSC Director, Dr. S. Unnikrishnan Nair told WION about how the same RLV-TD vehicle had earlier (in 2016) successfully been carried to 65kmaltitude by a rocket. From there, the vehicle re-entered the denser parts of the atmopshere at Hypersonic speeds, almost five times the speed of sound and finally made a splashdown landing in the Bay of Bengal (simulated runway).

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However, the ocean landing was a preliminary step and the precise runway landing is a really sophisticated and technologically complex feat that takes forward the progress of making the spaceplane a reality, he added.

Dr. Nair also said that this RLV-TD vehicle was meant for demonstration purpose and the real vehicle would be about 1.6 times larger. Specifying how the final RLV spaceplane would work, he said that the spaceplane would be mounted atop a modified-GSLV rocket and then launched into space, where the spaceplane would be autonomously carrying out on-board experiments and operating its payloads.

The spaceplane could function in Low Earth orbit for up to a month and then autonomously perform de-orbiting and re-enter the earth's atmosphere and come in to land on the runway. This ensures that the spaceplane can be fully re-used, after carrying out a few refurbishments.

On the latest test and the homegrown systems for the same, ISRO said LEX utilised several indigenous systems. Localised Navigation systems based on pseudolite systems, instrumentation, and sensor systems, etc. were developed by ISRO.

Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the landing site with a Ka-band Radar Altimeter provided accurate altitude information. The RLV LEX demanded several state-of-the-art technologies including accurate Navigation hardware and software, Pseudolite system, Ka-band Radar Altimeter, NavIC receiver, indigenous Landing Gear, Aerofoil honey-comb fins and brake parachute system, the Indian space agency added.

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