The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ISRO working on reuse of launch vehicles

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 06, 2007
ePaper


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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

ISRO working on reuse of launch vehicles

Staff Reporter

This will bring down the cost of satellite launches: Nair

BANGALORE: India should be able to have a system enabling the reuse of lower and upper stages of its rockets by 2020, G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said here on Monday.

Dr. Nair was making a presentation of ISRO's future plan in rocket science and space research to delegates at the four-day "International Seminar on Aerospace Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities," organised by the Ministry of Defence in association with the Aeronautical Society of India.

He said work was on to study the possibility of recovering, re-servicing and reusing the launch vehicles, which would bring down the cost of satellite launches. "Research and development of technology would take another five years before we enter the engineering design stage."

Several issues, including sonic aerodynamics, integrating the winged body to the rocket, thermal management and navigation needed to be sorted out. The first stage of the rocket releases after travelling around 100 km, while the second stage releases after travelling between 600 and 700 km.

Ideally, he said, we would want an aircraft like system to launch the satellites, but materials and propulsion system needed to be developed. At present, the U.S. had been recovering the upper portion (shuttles), he added.

Dr. Nair said that six proposals had been short-listed out of the 30 that the ISRO received for participation in Chandrayan, the India's project on moon. He said, "Two proposals from the U.S. and four from Europe would be piggy-backing the Chandrayan programme."

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