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India Targets July/August To Test Its Space Shuttle

Posted by Soulskill on from the hurry-up,-the-ISS-needs-pizza dept.

New submitter gubol123 writes with news that India is close to launching its own space shuttle for the first time. Their space program, ISRO, is planning the shuttle's first test flight for some time in July or August. The unmanned shuttle will fly to a height of approximately 70 kilometers before splashing down in the Bay of Bengal. Oddly, the vehicle itself probably won't be recovered. When it lands in the water, it will sink, and there are no plans to try to bring it back to the surface. The most important obstacles are surviving re-entry and simply staying intact during splashdown. Scientists and ISRO engineers are hoping the shuttle program, when finished, will drop the cost of placing objects in orbit by a factor of 10.

11 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. How is this a shuttle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The term shuttle in murican terms is a piloted thing that lands under control. this seems more like a reusable space container?

    1. Re:How is this a shuttle? by Sivaraj · · Score: 4, Informative

      ISRO never called it a shuttle. It has always been refered to as technology demonstrator (RLV-TD). Current experiment is termed RLV-TD HEX (Hypersonic flight Experiment). The ultimate aim is to develop an RLV named Avatar, which was originally announced over 17 years ago.

      This particluar test flight should not be compared to US space shuttle. Better comparison would be X-43A or X51-A Waverider. As these have defence applications, the projects had been running between NASA and DARPA. Similarly, India's Avatar programme has also been shuttling between ISRO and DRDO (Defence Research & Development Organization).

      The main feature of Avatar concept is an air breathing Scramjet engine. So far there hasn't been any great success in developing Scramjet engine. The longest one fired for 15 seconds on second flight of X-51A, while its first flight didn't run scramjet. India is nowhere near developing Scramjet in immediate future. But the current flight will test some preliminary technologies related to that project, specifically hypersonic reentry. I don't think this particular vehicle has any propulsion. Even the next two experiments planned on the series (LEX and REX) are planned without any rocket propulsion, but will use turbofan engine for landing. Actual powered flight would be on the SPEX, which will use Scramjet (Source: http://isp.justthe80.com/launc...

      Current test is a 100 crore INR (about 16 million USD) experiment. I am happy that ISRO is doing something to take this promising technology further. It may take another 20 years before actually seeing a scramjet engine in action, but that is ok. I would consider it as my tax money well spent.

  2. ISRO sponsered by BIC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The unmanned shuttle will fly to a height of approximately 70 kilometers before splashing down in the Bay of Bengal. Oddly, the vehicle itself probably won't be recovered.

    How can it be called a Shuttle if it's only going to be used once?

    1. Re:ISRO sponsered by BIC by Somebody+Is+Using+My · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The unmanned shuttle will fly to a height of approximately 70 kilometers before splashing down in the Bay of Bengal. Oddly, the vehicle itself probably won't be recovered.

      How can it be called a Shuttle if it's only going to be used once?

      And while we are at it, since the beginning of "space" is generally accepted to be 100KM and this thing is only going up 70KM, the "space" part of its name is inaccurate too.

      But I guess "space shuttle" sounds better than "big can we're chucking high up into the air and then letting sink into the ocean".

  3. Craft recovery? by thegameiam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm very surprised that they wouldn't be at least planning to recover the craft - that would give them all sorts of validation about the actual impact (heh) of launch and re-entry, and could help them get to the next iteration faster. I assume they know what they're doing, but TFA didn't include anything approaching a reason for not attempting recovery.

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  4. Factor of 10 by ckhorne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The original US Space Shuttle was also designed to reduce costs - It was hoped that it would be able to run 50 missions / yr (one per week!) and cost $50million/mission (in 2011 dollars). Instead, reality set in, and by the end, it was running only a few missions per year at a cost of around 1/2 Billion dollars each.

    The Space Shuttle, while a novel idea, simply wasn't the best design for getting into space - it introducing too many safety compromises. Granted, technology has vastly improved since the 1970's, when the Space Shuttle was designed, but that's mostly in the area of computing - material science hasn't changed nearly as much.

    I truly hope India does well with their program, but I do wonder if they're ignoring the mistakes made by the US when we went down this road.

    Also... 70km... They do realize this isn't planet Kerbin, right?

    1. Re:Factor of 10 by ihtoit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The Rise and Fall of the Space Shuttle, Book Review: Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins, American Scientist, 2008, Vol. 96, No. 5, p. 32, estimates the average STS mission cost at $1.5Bn in adjusted USD.

      and Kerbin: funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing! The ISS suffers from atmospheric drag even at 250 miles up. KSP cutoff is shy of 70km, re-entry drag doesn't kick in until you hit 30km. I'd install a real atmosphere mod but I don't have 32GB RAM or a 5GHz processor.

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    2. Re:Factor of 10 by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A big part of the US shuttle program was that it was a compromise that had to do everything for everyone. For example, the initial plan was going to be fully reusable, but since they didn't have the money for that, it had to have the singe-use fuel tank. It also had to do orbital profiles for the military, such as being able to launch, release a single satellite and come down after making a single polar orbit. The plan was to Vandenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_6 for the launch. The entire idea was a bit silly since the entire idea was to use it to launch spy satellites faster than the Soviets could shoot term down if the cold war got luke-warm (but somehow not becoming an outright hot war). It is possible that this was actually a cover for another orbital profile that hasn't yet been declassified. But the basic upshot is clear: the shuttle had to many different things for many different people, many who never even ended up using it for the desired purposes. If you make something that has to a hundred different things don't be surprised if is very expensive.

  5. seems a bit wasteful by ihtoit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the US space program had one OV structural test vehicle and one airframe mockup. The test vehicle was refit for service (and became Challenger), the airframe mockup named Enterprise and sent to a museum. Enterprise never actually went into orbit. She was used for atmospheric glide and landing testing. Judging by the amount of money those two vehicles alone cost in construction (never mind development), which had to be a lot since Challenger's replacement, Endeavour, cost $1.7Bn and was built out of spare parts, it's great to see India's economy doing so well that it can afford to throw test articles into the sea and let them sink.

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    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  6. 70 km by pahles · · Score: 3, Informative

    Re-entry from only 70 km isn't exactly re-entry. It hasn't even been in space at that height...

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  7. The Karman line is 100km by tlambert · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Karman line is 100km. This thing is a suborbital. It's not going to space.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line