ISRO thanks Indian coast guard, NIOT for support in successful mission

the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), which successfully flight tested Indias first winged body aerospace vehicle operating in hypersonic flight regime today, acknowledge the support of Indian coast guard and National Institute of Ocean technology (NIOT) for the mid sea wind measurement and shipborne telemetry respectively in this mission.

In this experimental mission, the HS9 solid rocket booster carrying RLV-TD lifted off from the First Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota at 07:00hr IST.

After a successful flight of 91.1second, HS9 burn out occurred, following which both HS9 and RLV-TD mounted on its top coasted to a height of about 56 km. At that height, RLV-TD separated from HS9 booster and further ascended to a height of about 65km.

From that peak altitude of 65 km, RLV-TD began its descent followed by atmospheric re-entry at around Mach 5 (five times the speed of sound). The vehicles Navigation, Guidance and Control system accurately steered the vehicle during this phase for safe descent.

After successfully surviving high temperatures of re-entry with the help of its Thermal Protection System (TPS), RLV-TD successfully glided down to the defined landing spot over Bay of Bengal, at a distance of about 450km from Sriharikota, thereby fulfilling its mission objectives.

The vehicle was successfully tracked during its flight from ground stations at Sriharikota and a shipborne terminal.

Total flight duration from launch to landing of this mission of the delta winged RLV-TD, lasted for about 770seconds.

In this flight, critical technologies such as autonomous navigation, guidance and control, reusable thermal protection system and re-entry mission management have been successfully validated.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narenda Modi congratulated ISRO on their feat and wished them luck for future endeavours.