ISRO successfully conducted the Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX). The test was conducted at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, Karnataka on April 2, 2023.
- The Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX) test was the second of five tests that are a part of ISRO’s efforts to develop RLVs, or space planes/shuttles, which can travel to low earth orbits to deliver payloads and return to earth for use again.
Key points
- The RLV took off by a Chinook Helicopter of the Indian Air Force as an underslung load and flew to a height of 4.5 km (above MSL).
- Once the predetermined pillbox parameters were attained, based on the RLV’s Mission Management Computer command, the RLV was released in mid-air, at a down range of 4.6 km.
- Release conditions included 10 parameters covering position, velocity, altitude and body rates, etc. The release of RLV was autonomous.
- RLV then performed approach and landing maneuvers using the Integrated Navigation, Guidance & control system and completed an autonomous landing on the ATR air strip.
- With that, ISRO successfully achieved the autonomous landing of a space vehicle.
- 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.
- In a first in the world, a winged body has been carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by a helicopter and released for carrying out an autonomous landing on a runway.
- RLV is essentially a space plane with a low lift to drag ratio requiring an approach at high glide angles that necessitated a landing at high velocities of 350 kmph.
- ISRO had demonstrated the re-entry of its winged vehicle RLV-TD in the HEX mission in May 2016. The re-entry of a hypersonic sub-orbital vehicle marked a major accomplishment in developing Reusable Launch Vehicles.
- In HEX, the vehicle landed on a hypothetical runway over the Bay of Bengal. Precise landing on a runway was an aspect not included in the HEX mission.
- The LEX mission achieved the final approach phase that coincided with the re-entry return flight path exhibiting an autonomous, high speed (350 kmph) landing. The LEX began with an Integrated Navigation test in 2019 and followed multiple Engineering Model Trials and Captive Phase tests in subsequent years.
- With LEX, the dream of an Indian Reusable Launch Vehicle arrives one step closer to reality.
