![]() The US Air Force has successfully launched and recovered its uncrewed mini-shuttle, the X-37B, and the Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corporation is planning a crewless launch of its reusable vehicle, the Dream Chaser, in November 2016. No space agency has had a reusable crewed vehicle since NASA ended the space shuttle programme in 2011 – though such vehicles remain an attractive goal for both governments and private companies. ![]() The agency plans to carry out safe terrestrial landings and retrieve the vehicles in later test flights. The RLV went through the motions of a safe landing and splashed down in the ocean, but lacked the gear to land intact and was not recovered. The ground crew tracked the descent, observing that the heat-resistant plating successfully protected the plane. The RLV then tilted its nose up and began a controlled fall, re-entering the lower atmosphere at about five times the speed of sound. The shuttle was perched atop a rocket, and launched from a pad in Sriharikota, India, on the countrys eastern coast, according to the BBC. After the booster detached, the RLV sailed on through the mesosphere before peaking at 65 km.Īlthough it didn’t technically go into space, it travelled high enough to try out its wings and self-steering system. A booster rocket carried the RLV 56 kilometres above Earth, past the upper limits for aircraft and weather balloons. The transaction concerns the launching of the first Indian research satellite, which is to be put in orbit by a Soviet carrier rocket launched from Soviet.
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