Last year, Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent a Falcon rocket toward orbit along with 11 small satellites and then successfully retrieved the 15-story leftover booster back in their custody.

It is expected that reusable rockets will bring down the cost of the space missions dramatically. However, Elon Musk things that there is a lot of improvement possible in the usable launcher technology.

“If one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred. A fully reusable vehicle has never been done before. That really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to revolutionize access to space,” Musk had said earlier this year.

Indian space agency ISRO is exact trying to do the same away from media glare. During last year, the reputed space agency specialized in low cost launching completed several studies by carrying out various simulations in this regard. It was successful in validating the onboard software and conducted a highly successful test of the solid booster motor (HS9) together with Secondary Injection Thrust Vector Control (SITVC) system.

“A reusable vehicle is very important. There are two ways to look at it, one is the time factor and one is the cost factor. With a reusable vehicle, if two launches can be carried out in quick succession. This would save huge costs and will reduce the time to prepare the launch site,” informed Ajey Lele, who is working as fellow at New Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

India will soon test a small aeroplane-shaped launching vehicle as part of its pursuit to develop a reusable vehicle, informed a senior official of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “We will test a small aeroplane-shaped vehicle — reusable launch vehicle technology demonstrator — weighing around 1.7 tonnes soon. The vehicle will travel up to 70 km and will return,” said Mr. K. Sivan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, part of ISRO.

The current cost of putting 1kg of object in space is about USD 5000 and Indian scientists are hoping to bring it down to USD 500. That’s will be real substantial cost reduction! He also informed that ISRO will be using its heaviest rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) which is powered by a cryogenic engine.

“The rocket’s carrying-capacity will be between 3.2-3.4 tonnes. It will carry the GSAT 19 communication satellite,” Sivan informed.

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Author: Technology and Beyond