Avatar RLV

AVATAR (Aerobic Vehicle for hypersonic Aerospace TrAnspoRtation, probably a backronym) is a conceptual single-stage reusable rocketplanes which is capable of horizontal launch and land SSTO Reusable launch vehicle being developed by India's Defense Research and Development Organization along with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and other research institutions, which can be used for cheaper military and civilian satellite launches.

When operational, it is planned to be capable of delivering a payload weighing up to 1000 kg to low earth orbit. It would be the cheapest way to deliver material to space at about USD 67/kg. Each craft is expected to withstand 100 launches.

Concept

The idea is to develop a hyperplane vehicle that can take off from conventional airfields, collect air in the atmosphere on the way up, liquefy it, separate oxygen and store it on board for subsequent flight beyond the atmosphere. The Avatar RLV was first announced in May 1998 at the Aero India 98 exhibition held at Bangalore. It is planned to be the size of a MiG-25 fighter and would be capable of delivering a 500 kg to 1000 kg payload to low earth orbit at very cheap rate for an estimated vehicle life of 100 launches.

Avatar is proposed to weighing only 25 tonnes in which 60 per cent of mass will be liquid hydrogen fuel. The oxygen required by the vehicle for combustion is collected from the atmosphere, thus reducing the need to carry oxygen during launch. Avatar is said to be capable of entering into a 100-km orbit in a single stage and launching satellites weighing up to one tonne.

Operation

AVATAR would take off horizontally like conventional airplanes from conventional airstrips using turbo-ramjet engines that burn air and hydrogen or on top of transport aircraft. Once at a cruising altitude, the vehicle would be detached from carrier and use scramjet propulsion to accelerate from Mach 4 to Mach 8. During these cruising phases, an on-board system will collect air from atmosphere, from which liquid oxygen will be separated and stored. The liquid oxygen collected then would be used in the final flight phase when the rocket engine burns the collected liquid oxygen and the carried hydrogen to attain orbit. The vehicle will be designed to permit at least a hundred re-entries into the atmosphere.

Development

The AVATAR is being developed by India's Defense Research and Development Organization or DRDO. Air Commodore Raghavan Gopalaswami former chief of Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Hyderabad is heading the project. He coined the name and made the presentation on the space plane at the global conference on propulsion at Salt Lake City (USA) on July 10, 2001. Gopalaswami said the idea for Avatar originated from the work published by the Rand Corporation of the United States in 1987.

The AVATAR is currently only in the conceptual stage and an initial development budget of only $5 million is allocated. The project supporters claim that the vehicle can be built in ten years with total funding of under $2 billion with international assistance. Along with DRDO team development of critical technology components were undertaken by as many as 23 academic institutions (IITs, IISc etc) along with ISRO in India. Both the scramjet engine concept and the liquid oxygen collection process have already undergone successful tests at DRDO and at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. DRDO has approved further testing of the liquid oxygen process and assigned a team to conduct a detailed review of the vehicle’s design.

Currently DRDO plans to build and fly a scaled down version of Avatar, weighing just 3 tonnes at take off. To be built by a Hyderabad-based private company called CIM Technologies by 2009, this mini-Avatar will not go into space but will demonstrate all technologies used in Avatar including oxygen collection. It is claimed that the full-scale AVATAR would be viable by as early 2015 with international co-operation along with other countries working on this area. AVATAR design has already been patented in India and applications for registration of the design have been filed in patent offices in the United States, Germany, Russia and China.

Future plans

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the space agency of India, has completed the ground-level trials of the air-breathing engine and is preparing to move into more advanced stages of development. A technology demonstrator of an Avatar reusable launch vehicle, a forerunner of the Indian version of a reusable space shuttle, will take off in 2008.

External links

Articles

* [http://www.geocities.com/spacetransport/spacecraft-avatar.html] Concept of Avatar
* [http://www.spacedaily.com/news/india-01i.html] Space Daily

Reports

* [http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/25/stories/2005082517210100.htm Reusable launch vehicle (TD) lift-off in 2008] The Hindu
* [http://www.isro.org/newsletters/spaceindia/oct2005mar2006/ISROachieves.htm ISRO Achieves Breakthrough in Supersonic Combustion] ISRO
* [http://www.stratmag.com/issue2July-1/page02.htm Fast Forward] strategic affairs

ee also

*Avatar (disambiguation)