DHAKA: India’s space agency ISRO has launched a rocket from its facility north of Chennai carrying an experimental spacecraft it hopes will mark an important step towards the country’s first re-usable space shuttle.

"We have successfully accomplished the RLV mission as a technology demonstrator," ISRO spokesman Devi Prasad Karnik told reporters.

The $14m Reusable Launch Vehicle, or RLV-TD, which is around the size of a minibus, was lifted to an altitude of 70km before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, exposing it to temperatures of up to 2,000C.

"Whether the thermal coating on the space plane can withstand that kind of heat pressure is one thing that needs be vetted at this particular stage," Rajeswari P Rajagopalan, the head of the independent think-tank Nuclear and Space Policy Initiative at the Observer Research Foundation, told Al Jazeera.

One-sixth the size of the planned shuttle, this test flight was also designed to see if the shuttle could glide and navigate at speeds of up to 6000kmph, before attempting a landing on the sea in the Bay of Bengal.

"The wings are very small, so it’s still going to be a very huge challenge to land it on a runway and therefore we are landing it straight back on the ocean," says Rajagopalan.

The test mission was an important step towards developing a full-scale, reusable shuttle to send up satellites.

The shuttle is not expected to come into service for at least 15 years but ISRO hopes the technology will reduce costs and make access to space more affordable.

BDST: 0934 HRS, May 24, 2016
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