• ISRO successfully demonstrated a new technology with Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD) that it said is a game-changer with multiple applications for future missions.

• In the flight, along with IAD new elements like micro video imaging system which captured the bloom and flight of IAD, a miniature software defined radio telemetry transmitter, MEMS (Micro-electromechanical systems)-based acoustic sensor and a host of new methodologies were flight tested successfully.

• This demonstration opens a gateway for cost-effective spent stage recovery using the Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator technology and it  can also be used in ISRO’s future missions to Venus and Mars.

Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator

• An Inflatable Aerodynamic Deceleration method and system is provided for use with an atmospheric entry payload.

• An IAD, designed and developed by ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), was successfully test flown in a Rohini sounding rocket from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS).

• The IAD was initially folded and kept inside the payload bay of the rocket.

• At around 84 km altitude, the IAD was inflated and it descended through the atmosphere with the payload part of a sounding rocket. 

• The pneumatic system for inflation was developed by ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC).

• The IAD has systematically reduced the velocity of the payload through aerodynamic drag and followed the predicted trajectory.

• This is the first time that an IAD is designed specifically for spent stage recovery. All the objectives of the mission were successfully demonstrated.

• The IAD has huge potential in a variety of space applications like recovery of spent stages of rocket, for landing payloads on to Mars or Venus and in making space habitat for human space flight missions.

Sounding rockets

• Rohini sounding rockets are routinely used for flight demonstration of new technologies being developed by ISRO as well as by scientists from India and abroad.

• Sounding rockets offers an exciting platform for experimentation in the upper atmosphere.

• Sounding rockets are one or two stage solid propellant rockets used for probing the upper atmospheric regions and for space research. They also serve as easily affordable platforms to test or prove prototypes of new components or subsystems intended for use in launch vehicles and satellites. 

• With the establishment of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in 1963, there was a quantum jump in the scope for aeronomy and atmospheric sciences in India. The launch of the first sounding rocket from Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on November 21, 1963, marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme.  

• In 1975, all sounding rocket activities were consolidated under the Rohini Sounding Rocket (RSR) Programme.

Manorama Yearbook app is now available on Google Play Store and iOS App Store