India will join an elite club of countries with the launch next year of its first recoverable and reusable spacecraft in polar orbit, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported last Friday (August 13).
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is completing preparations for the launch of the spacecraft to be used for conducting zero gravity experiments in a reusable capsule.
With it, India will join the elite club of six countries that have the technology and domain expertise. The six nations are US, France, Russia, China, Japan and the European Union (the European Space Agency).
“We will be sending a recoverable spacecraft of 500 kg into the orbit using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). It will be retained for over a month to conduct zero gravity experiments in metal melting, composites and microbes for biological tests.
“The spacecraft will be maneuvered to re-enter the atmosphere and land safely on earth for retrieving the experimental data fromits capsule and its reuse subsequently,” IANS quoted ISRO chairmanG. Madhavan Nair as saying at the space agency headquarters in Bangalore in south India.
ISRO will be launching the Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) payload as a co-passenger with Cartosat-2 satellite in the second half of 2005 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh state in southeast India.
“The SRE spacecraft will be positioned in the polar orbit at about 650 km above earth,” Nair stated.
The spacecraft can also be recovered from sea using the floatation system.
The SRE payload is being developed at the Vikram Sarabhai SpaceCentre in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala state in south India in collaboration with the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore.
