Reusable launch vehicle puts India in 'G4'

Russia, US and China other countries with capability.

The successful recovery of the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1) satellite has brought India closer to a select group of nations that have the capability to bring an orbiting spacecraft back to earth.

At present, Russia, USA and China have this capability. This will also help India develop a reusable launch vehicle (RLV) for future space launches, although this is still at a nascent stage.

According to sources from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a reusable launch vehicle will be vital because India is planning a manned mission to space by 2020, after the unmanned mission to moon (Chandrayaan) by early 2008.

The ISRO is also planning to launch SRE-2, its second space capsule recovery satellite in the next one or two years, although the date has not been fixed.

"We want to master the technology from our experiment on SRE-1, before we go for the second launch. We are giving a thought to the type of experiments we are planning on board the proposed SRE-2," an ISRO official said.

The 550 kg SRE-1 was launched by the ISRO from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, on January 10 with three other satellites, including one from Indonesia and one from Argentina, using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7).

It was successfully recovered on Tuesday after being manoeuvred to re-enter the earth's atmosphere. It descended over the Bay of Bengal about 140 km east of Sriharikota.

During its stay in orbit for the last 12 days, the two experiments on board SRE-1 were successfully conducted under micro-gravity conditions.

One of the experiments was related to the study of metal melting and crystallisation under micro gravity conditions and the second was intended to study the synthesis of nano-crystals under micro-gravity conditions.

The first experiment was jointly designed by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, was performed in an isothermal heating furnace.

The second experiment, designed by National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, was intended to study the synthesis of nano-crystals under micro-gravity conditions.

This experiment can help in designing better biomaterials having closest proximity with natural biological products.