{"id":20390,"date":"2016-01-01T16:47:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T00:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/potential-delay-for-first-test-flight-of-indias-spaceplane-demonstrator"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:16:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:16:57","slug":"potential-delay-for-first-test-flight-of-indias-spaceplane-demonstrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/potential-delay-for-first-test-flight-of-indias-spaceplane-demonstrator","title":{"rendered":"Potential delay for first test flight of India\u2019s spaceplane demonstrator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/potential-delay-for-first-test-flight-of-indias-spaceplane-demonstrator.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) may have to delay the first test flight of its experimental Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) spaceplane. The unmanned sub-orbital spacecraft, which is similar in design to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/nasa-to-fly-experiment-on-x-37b-spaceplane\/37387\/\" target=\"_blank\">US Air Force\u2019s X-37B<\/a>, was scheduled to be launched in February, but technical difficulties may put back the flight to the first week of April.<\/p>\n<p>According to a report in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/cities\/thiruvananthapuram\/ISROs-RLV-TD-Project-Likely-to-be-Delayed\/2015\/12\/28\/article3199276.ece\" target=\"_blank\"><em>New Indian Express<\/em><\/a>, a minor leak in the flight systems of the RLV-TD led to the potential setback. K Sivan, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), where the craft is being developed, told the paper that the spacecraft needed to be reassembled, which could cause a significant delay if more problems occur.<\/p>\n<p>The RLV-TD is a two-stage scaled prototype of India\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Avatar_(spacecraft)\" target=\"_blank\">Avatar<\/a> spacecraft designed to drastically reduce the cost of launching payloads into orbit from US$5,000 per kilogram (2.2 lb) to US$500. RLV-TD is a winged technology demonstrator for testing flight and propulsion systems that will allow the completed Avatar to return to Earth for a controlled landing like a conventional aircraft.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/india-spaceplane-launch-delay\/41087\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) may have to delay the first test flight of its experimental Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) spaceplane. The unmanned sub-orbital spacecraft, which is similar in design to the US Air Force\u2019s X-37B, was scheduled to be launched in February, but technical difficulties may put back the flight to the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1491],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68936,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20390\/revisions\/68936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}