The Hindu : National : Launch of a technology demonstrator in 2009

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Friday, Sep 21, 2007
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Launch of a technology demonstrator in 2009

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: India is planning to launch a technology demonstrator of a reusable launch vehicle in 2009, according to B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

“Work is progressing on the technology demonstrator of the reusable launch vehicle and we are planning to have its launch in 2009,” Dr. Suresh said on Thursday at a press conference convened to provide details of the five-day International Astronautical Congress (IAC), which will begin here on September 24.

It will be launched from the Indian Space Research Organisation’s spaceport at Sriharikota. “The technology demonstrator is a precursor to mastering technologies related to the reusable launch vehicles. It will vertically take off, go into the right atmosphere, then fly out of the dense atmosphere … It is basically for testing the hypersonic aerodynamics, the thermal protection system and a host of other technologies,” he said.

The contraption would inject the reusable technology demonstrator into the atmosphere at a high Mach speed. But the technology demonstrator would not be recovered in the first flight.

“There will be no recovery because this is the first flight. But we will receive a lot of data by telemetry.” Dr. Suresh, who is also the co-chairman of the international congress committee and chairman of the national planning committee for organising the IAC 2007 in Hyderabad, said Yong Li Wei, the first Chinese astronaut to go into space in a Chinese space module a few years ago, would take part in the IAC.

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