Webdesk: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced on Sunday that the Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX) was a success.
“India has done it!” the agency tweeted on Sunday.
According to ISRO. The test conducted in the early hours of Sunday at the Aeronautical Test Range in southern Karnataka state. The RLV took off at 7.10am local time (0140 GMT) through an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter. It was as “an underslung load and flew to a height of 4.5 kilometres (2.7 miles).”
“RLV released on its own. “Using the integrated navigation, guidance, and control system. RLV then performed approach and landing maneuvers and completed an autonomous landing on the ATR (Aeronautical Test Range) airstrip at 7.40am (local time),” the agency said in a statement. Adding that it “successfully achieved the autonomous landing of a space vehicle.”
The ISRO also stated that the autonomous landing “carried out under the exact conditions of a space re-entry vehicle’s landing. That is high speed, unmanned, precise landing from the same return path — as if the vehicle arrives from space.”
According to the agency, “in a first in the world, a winged body carried to an altitude of 4.5 km by helicopter and released for carrying out an autonomous landing on a runway.”
