ISRO successfully conducts second Pushpak RLV landing experiment

“Congratulations to @isro for yet another remarkable achievement! A proud moment for the nation! With the successful autonomous landing of #Pushpak (RLV-TD), India reaffirms its commitment to pioneering space exploration under PM Shri @narendramodi Ji’s leadership. This incredible feat showcases the unwavering dedication and ingenuity of ISRO scientists, pushing the boundaries of space access and affordability,” Union Minister Nitin Gadkari wrote in a post on X.

Congratulations to @isro for yet another remarkable achievement! A proud moment for the nation! 🚀🇮🇳

With the successful autonomous landing of #Pushpak (RLV-TD), India reaffirms its commitment to pioneering space exploration under PM Shri @narendramodi Ji’s leadership.

This…

— Nitin Gadkari (मोदी का परिवार) (@nitin_gadkari) March 22, 2024

This is ISRO’s second series of RLV landing experiment and this time, the RLV exhibited autonomous landing capability and undertook more difficult manoeuvres with dispersions.

Notably, the high-speed landing conditions and approach used by RLV while returning from space was simulated during the mission. ISRO Chairman S Somanath appreciated the team for successful mission.

Last year in April, ISRO conducted the series of experiments with RLV-TD. It was part of efforts at “developing essential technologies for a fully reusable launch vehicle to enable low-cost access to space”.

ISRO’s RLV-TD looking like an aircraft consisted of a fuselage, a nose cap, double delta wings, and twin vertical tails.

Back in 2016, the space agency conducted the maiden test flight of RLV Demonstrator at Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The experiment involved sending a winged spacecraft on a rocket powered by conventional solid booster (HS9) engine used by ISRO into space. The spacecraft traveled at a speed of Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound) when re-entering the earth’s orbit and traveled a distance of 450 km before splashdown in the Bay of Bengal. It was ISRO’s first attempt to develop a space vehicle that can fly numerous times into space like aeroplanes.