India plans to flight test winged Reusable Launch Vehicle this March

www.ibtimes.co.uk...
The Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstration Program or RLV-TD is a series of technology demonstration missions aimed at realising a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully re-usable vehicle.
It will be tested for powered cruise flight, autonomous landing and hypersonic flight using air-breathing propulsion, according to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).
"It will be a winged vehicle that will take off vertically like a rocket and glide back to land horizontally like a plane," said Somanath.
Space orbiting currently costs around 3277 pounds ($5,000) per kg and the agency plans to bring it down to 10% the cost at 327 pounds ($500), he said.

isrohq.vssc.gov.in...

These technologies will be developed in phases through a series of experimental flights. The first in the series of experimental flights is the hypersonic flight experiment (HEX) followed by the landing experiment (LEX), return flight experiment (REX) and scramjet propulsion experiment (SPEX). Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator Hypersonic Experiment (RLV-TD HEX1) wherein the hypersonic aero-thermo dynamic characterization of winged reentry body along with autonomous mission management to land at a specified location and characterization of hot structures are planned to be demonstrated.

I wonder if this can be used for manned flights. Will be certainly interesting considering India will be the only country with a reusable spacecraft. I.e until NASA finishes work on its warp drive. Which should be atleast a decade away.

Imagine if the whole world was at peace and the earth entire brains and resources were put together to explore space...

originally posted by: maddy21

...I.e until NASA finishes work on its warp drive. Which should be atleast a decade away.

Err, what? Did Zefram Cochrane go to work for NASA and I missed it?

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

He isn't even born yet!!!.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Err, what? Did Zefram Cochrane go to work for NASA and I missed it?

a reply to: maddy21

You do know that it is an artist's conception. right? The same article states that they do not even know if a 'warp drive' is possible.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
a reply to: maddy21
You do know that it is an artist's conception. right? The same article states that they do not even know if a 'warp drive' is possible.

I thought it was work in progress , dang it :\

www.thehindubusinessline.com...

ISRO said it has achieved an early step in the race for low-cost, reusable space vehicle technology with a brief demonstration of its scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet).Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSCC), Thiruvananthapuram, has designed, developed and tested the scramjet as part of the ongoing work on air-breathing propulsion. VSSC demonstrated the scramjet for seven seconds at Mach 6 (six times the speed of sound) through a series of ground tests.The complex air-breathing rockets under development use atmospheric oxygen during flight, while today's rockets carry both the oxygen and the fuel. As such they will be lighter, more efficient and cost some 15 times less than the conventional ones.

I wonder if this technology can be used in military ..

Good to see other country's getting aboard space travel/flight etc.
Maybe one day they can all work together and we can fulfill our destiny...to travel to the stars!!.

India can't feed it's own people. Why are they wasting money on a spaceship?

Kudos to India. Scientific and technological progress doesn't revolve around "superpowers" like USA or Russia.

By the way, judging by requests to join my Soyuz Space Program group on Facebook, Indians are the biggest international fans of the Russian space programs. Perhaps Russia and India will do some great space collaboration together, such as landing on the Moon.

It will be great for India to succeed, but NASA thought their Space Shuttle would to reduce the cost of putting a pound of payload into space by tenfold, but the reduced costs never became a reality.

Maybe India can achieve success here, especially if the vehicle remains unmanned, not requiring the additional costly measures of a manned vehicle.

originally posted by: maddy21
...I.e until NASA finishes work on its warp drive. Which should be atleast a decade away.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus
Err, what? Did Zefram Cochrane go to work for NASA and I missed it?

"First Contact Day" (April 5th, 2063) -- the day that (according to Star Trek) Zefram Cochrane lauched the first warp drive, causing the Vulcans to make contact with us, because with that launch we had then become part of the "warp-capable civilization" club -- will be my wife's 99th birthday.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
India can't feed it's own people. Why are they wasting money on a spaceship?

To make money in the space-launch business. There are plenty of space launch businesses out there making money on putting satellites and other payloads into space.

For example, prior to SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Inc. winning the contracts from NASA for space station resupply vehicles, both of those companies had had success in providing launch services to companies and countries for putting satellites into space. Other companies who have been making profits on providing launch services included United Launch Alliance (a joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing) and Sea Launch Corporation.

Sea Launch
United alunch Alliance
Orbital Sciences Corporation

Even if the Indian government is not looking to turn a profit on space launches, having a cheaper method for getting their own satellites into space would save them money over paying some other company to do it for them....And for India to succeed in helping its citizens, it needs to be a more technologically advanced country.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
India can't feed it's own people. Why are they wasting money on a spaceship?

You could ask the same question of the US, Russia, any other country.

There are plenty of countries which feed nearly all of their people who aren't doing anything in space.

A space program actually helps develop a country so that the "brain drain" reverses and Indian engineers, scientists, astronauts return to India.

Poverty is not just about a government not feeding its people. There is a poverty of the mind whereby young kids see nothing to aspire to which feeds overall poverty.

A space program gives people something to aspire to and dream about.

When China launched its first satellite it couldn't feed its people either. Now look at them.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: maddy21

...I.e until NASA finishes work on its warp drive. Which should be atleast a decade away.

Err, what? Did Zefram Cochrane go to work for NASA and I missed it?

just so you know NASA is very interested in warp related stuff. look the pdf over and you will see QVPT mentioned several times. QVPT is the subspecies of EM drive that Dr White is using to hopefully produce warp fields for his interferometry experiments to detect.

ntrs.nasa.gov...

and again in this document:

ntrs.nasa.gov...

additionally there are roughly 1200 pages in various threads at the NSF advanced concepts forum where actual engineers and physicists debate back and forth on EM drive experiments even pre-publishing rebuttal papers and rebuttals of rebuttals on such things as shawyer, Canna and QVPT EM drives where occasionally the topic drifts to warp drives and the like.

Good for India.
I could'nt quickly find 2014 stats, but a couple of years ago the UK gave India 280 million pounds (about $500mil), and the USA gave 128 Mill $, both for foreign aid.

So gives you some idea where India gets its money....Not to mention all the Foreign aid from Germany, Australia etc etc.

Nobody give Australia or the USA or UK Foreign Aid.

Not really a level playing field.

But hey, they are a third World country arent they?....even tho they can send spaceships to Mars, space shuttles into orbit.....but cant feed or house all their people..........I guess they are just copying the USA. .

originally posted by: gort51
Good for India.
I could'nt quickly find 2014 stats, but a couple of years ago the UK gave India 280 million pounds (about $500mil), and the USA gave 128 Mill $, both for foreign aid.

So gives you some idea where India gets its money....Not to mention all the Foreign aid from Germany, Australia etc etc.

Nobody give Australia or the USA or UK Foreign Aid.

Not really a level playing field.

But hey, they are a third World country arent they?....even tho they can send spaceships to Mars, space shuttles into orbit.....but cant feed or house all their people..........I guess they are just copying the USA.

.

www.hindustantimes.com...

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Not our fault if you are literally forcing us to accept money

delete.............

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

NO this time line is slow and Khan is Chinese.

originally posted by: Hoosierdaddy71
India can't feed it's own people. Why are they wasting money on a spaceship?

Maybe the people should feed themselves instead of looking for a government hand out. Plenty of damn cows to eat and cow dung to cook with; Oh can't do that out of religious concerns.. then starve...

Anyone who has ever been to Kathmandu or the Taj Mahal knows why I said that.

Seems we have forgotten the British 'sabre' engine, and the craft it powers.