Autonomous Test Landing Of Reusable Launch Vehicle Successfully Conducted By ISRO

Chitradurga, 2nd April 2023: Today (April 2), the reusable launch vehicle prototype of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) underwent a successful autonomous touchdown test or air-drop landing experiment.

The RLV LEX operation, coordinated by the Defence Space Research Organisation the Indian Air Force (IAF), was completed in the early hours of Sunday at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR) in Chitradurga, Karnataka.

Informing the same, ISRO tweeted, “India achieved it. ISRO joined by DRDO successfully conducted the Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX) at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, Karnataka in the early hours on April 2, 2023.”

The RLV was launched at 7:10 am by an IAF Chinook Helicopter, according to the announcement. RLV was released on its own. The RLV then accomplished an autonomous landing on the ATR at 7:40 AM using the Integrated Navigation, Guidance & Control system. That allowed ISRO to accomplish the autonomous arrival of a spacecraft.

The statement read, “The autonomous landing was carried out under the exact conditions of a Space Re-entry vehicle’s landing high speed, unmanned, precise landing from the same return path as if the vehicle arrives from space. LEX utilized several indigenous systems. Localized Navigation systems, instrumentation, and sensor systems, etc. were developed by ISRO.”

It added, “ISRO had demonstrated the re-entry of its winged vehicle RLV-TD in the HEX mission in May 2016. The re-entry of a hypersonic sub-orbital vehicle marked a major accomplishment in developing Reusable Launch Vehicles. The LEX began with an Integrated Navigation test in 2019 and followed multiple Engineering Model Trials and Captive Phase tests in subsequent years.”