ISRO in a major breakthrough was successful in recovering its space capsule that was launched on January 10 for a launch pad in Sriharikota on India’s east coast.
The capsule called the Recovery Experiment or simply SRE-1 came back to the planet and landed in the Bay of Bengal about 140 KM from the launch site.
ISRO also commented that the successful launch and the recovery have demonstrated that India is capable in developing technologies like aero-thermo structures, deceleration and flotation systems, navigation, guidance and control systems.
The mission launched four satellites some 637 kilometers into space. Two were indigenous, one from Indonesia and one from Argentina.
The SRE-1 also successfully completed two experiments during its short 12-day stay in space. The experiments included studying metal melting and crystallization under microgravity and investigating the synthesis of nano-crystals under microgravity conditions.
The recovery was doing around 29,000 Kmph on its way back to Earth when it was about 100 km from earth but ISROs parachutes and aerodynamic braking worked to perfection and the capsule landed at just a speed of 43 Kmph in the Bay of Bengal. The flotation equipment also worked perfectly and the capsule was picked up by the Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy.
Via: CBC
