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| India-Pakistan |
| India's DRDO plans to test a Mach-7 Scramjet engine |
| 2006-12-14 |
| PUNE, DECEMBER 13 : The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is planning to conduct ground tests for the country’s first flight version of a Supersonic Combustion Ramjet (Scramjet) engine in Hyderabad next year. This is will be followed by the first Scramjet flight test in 2008. The design of a flight version of the Scramjet engine is on and it will be ground tested in 2007, followed by a flight test a year later, Chief Controller R&D (Service Interaction), DRDO, Dr Prahlada, told The Indian Express on the sidelines of a conference on ‘Air Breathing Engines and Aerospace Propulsion’ at the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) here on Tuesday. As per plan, the flight test will be carried out onboard an indigenous platform, a prototype of which has already been developed by DRDO. “The vehicle will be 7-m long and we have already developed a prototype for the test. It will enter a 20-second long flight to go up to mach 7,” Dr Prahlada said. DRDO has already ground tested a scramjet engine to speeds in excess of Mach 2, he added. A Scramjet engine makes it possible to design smaller, lighter and faster aircraft as it takes oxygen needed for fuel combustion from the atmosphere itself instead of carrying liquid oxygen. |
| Posted by:john |
| #5 Looks like they're building a new one (speeds up to mach 12). The older ones were 2m diameter. It would be interesting to see the specs of this one. Rs 100-crore hypersonic test facility to come up at VSSC Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 In what would give considerable thrust to IndiaÂ’s long-term space race strategies, a hypersonic test facility that can test speed up to Mach 12 speed is set to come up at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram. The facility, which is to be installed at a cost of around Rs 100 crore, will materialise in a year, VSSC Associate Director Dr V Adimurthy told this websiteÂ’s newspaper on the sidelines of the 20th national aerospace conference which began on Sunday. WhatÂ’s special about the new facility, which is being developed indigenously, is that it will be the first one in the country that can test speed up to Mach 12. |
| Posted by: john 2006-12-14 15:17 |
| #4 IIRC they have two hypersonic wind tunnels for testing models of spacecraft |
| Posted by: john 2006-12-14 15:00 |
| #3 Ground test at mach 7? That's one king-hell of a wind tunnel ya got there, boys... |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-12-14 14:15 |
| #2 ....God (or Rama)bless 'em, there's plenty of room Out there for those who want to explore and make their fortunes... Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2006-12-14 12:34 |
| #1 Isro to perform space capsule recovery experiment Between January 10 and 15, 2007, the highly-proven four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will thunder off the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, carrying with it three satellites. In an interview with Times of India on Saturday, chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) G Madhavan Nair, said the three satellites to be carried by the rocket are the indigenous Cartosat-2, to be used for mapping purposes, a space capsule recovery experiment (SRE) and a 50 kilogram Indonesian satellite called Lapan. The SRE mission is important because the capsule will be placed in orbit at an altitude of 625 km and recovered after sometime. This will allow Indian Space Research Organisation to study the reusable launch vehicle technology especially in the critical area of re-entry when the capsule will experience searing temperatures. Once placed in orbit, the capsule carrying some microgravity experiments is expected to remain in that position for 12 to 90 days. When the drop command is flashed from Isro's telemetry and tracking centre at Bangalore, it will re-enter at a velocity of 1.5 km per second and splash down either in the Bay of Bengal or the Pulicat Lake. During the final moments of the touchdown the capsule's speed will be reduced with the help of three parachutes. Nair said the process of integrating the 44-metre tall PSLV rocket has been initiated at Sriharikota. |
| Posted by: john 2006-12-14 10:45 |