The HSTDV test, conducted from Dr. Abdul Kalam island off the coast of Odisha at 11:03 am to demonstrate autonomous flight of an integrated scramjet vehicle, propelled India directly into an extremely exclusive US-made hypersonic club, Russia and China from now on.
All three countries, of course, are far ahead in the race to develop aerodynamically maneuverable hypersonic weapons (over Mach 5 speeds) that can defeat enemy missile defense systems. China, in fact, flaunted its DF-17 missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle at its national military parade last year.
In Monday’s Indian test, the hypersonic cruise vehicle maintained its scramjet-powered flight path at six times the speed of sound (Mach 6, or nearly 2 km per second) for 22-24 seconds. It automatically turned on to fly on its own after separating from the “launch vehicle”, which brought it to an altitude of 30 km. The launch vehicle, in turn, was powered by the proven solid-propellant rocket engine of an Agni ballistic missile.
“It is a great technological advance. The air-breathing scramjet engine was successfully tested in flight at hypersonic speed within the atmosphere, meeting all technical parameters. The test paves the way for the development of many more critical hypersonic technologies, materials and vehicles, ”he said. DRDO President Dr. G Satheesh Reddy, speaking to TOI.
Congratulating DRDO, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “The scramjet engine developed by our scientists helped achieve a speed of 6 times the speed of sound! Very few countries have such capacity today. ”
Congratulations to @DRDO_India on the successful flight of the hypersonic test demonstration vehicle today. The scramj… https://t.co/Sn1sRJtJWe
– Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) 1599488402000
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, in turn, said it was a “historic achievement” towards’Atmanirbhar Bharat‘. Now is the time to move on to the next phase with “all critical technologies” established by the successful HSTDV flight test, using the scramjet propulsion system developed in the country, he added.
I congratulate DRDO for this historic achievement towards the realization of PM’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. I spoke with… https://t.co/PJraOpYbhZ
– Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) 1599459913000
The next phase will be to develop long-range hypersonic cruise missiles, which DRDO scientists said would be possible in the next five to six years. The complex technology behind the HSTDV, whose first launch failed in June last year, also has civil applications such as low-cost launching of small satellites.
India, of course, has yet to achieve sustained hypersonic scramjet flight for a few minutes, which has been demonstrated by the United States, Russia and China.
The Indian armed forces already have the ramjet-powered BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, flying at a speed of Mach 2.8, jointly developed with Russia. Its attack range has been improved from the original 290 km to over 400 km now.
A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine because the former runs efficiently at hypersonic speeds and allows for supersonic combustion. Ramjets, by contrast, perform well at supersonic speeds around Mach 3, but their efficiency drops at hypersonic speeds.
In Monday’s test, the “cruise vehicle’s air inlet was opened as planned” after being propelled to a height of 30 km by the launch vehicle. “Critical events such as the fuel injection and the scramjet auto-ignition demonstrated technological maturity. The scramjet engine worked like a textbook, ”said the DRDO.
On a landmark mission today, India successfully tested the Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle (HSTDV), a… https://t.co/qAsddTBxCX
– DRDO (@DRDO_India) 1599461773000
The launch and cruise vehicle parameters were continuously monitored by multiple tracking radars, electro-optical systems, and telemetry stations. “A ship was also deployed to the Bay of Bengal to monitor the performance during the cruise phase of the hypersonic vehicle. All the performance parameters have indicated a resounding success of the mission ”, he added.
In video: See: India successfully tests a hypersonic technology demonstrator with scramjet engine
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