The landing experiment of a reusable launch vehicle was successfully carried out in India.
The RLV was launched into the air by a Chinook chopper as a “underslung load” and reached an altitude of 4.5 kilometers during its flight.
ANKARA: The Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX) was successfully carried out, according to the national space agency of India, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
India has done it, the agency said on Sunday.
The test, according to ISRO, took place early on Sunday at the Aeronautical Test Range in southern Karnataka state. The RLV was “an underslung load and soared to a height of 4.5 kilometers (2.7 miles)” by a Chinook chopper of the Indian Air Force.
“RLV was autonomously released. In a statement, the agency said that the RLV “successfully achieved the autonomous landing of a space vehicle.” It continued, “RLV then performed approach and landing maneuvers using the integrated navigation, guidance, and control system and completed an autonomous landing on the ATR (Aeronautical Test Range) airstrip at 7.40am (local time).”
The ISRO continued, “Landing parameters such as ground relative velocity, the sink rate of landing gears, and precise body rates, as might be experienced by an orbital re-entry space vehicle in its return path, were achieved.” The autonomous landing “was carried out under the exact conditions of a space re-entry vehicle’s landing — high speed, unmanned, precise landing from the same return path — as if the vehicle arrives from space.”
The organization added that “a winged body has been lifted to an altitude of 4.5 kilometers by helicopter and released for carrying out an autonomous landing on a runway” in a world first.
