Indian Space Research Organisation Space Capsule Successfully Recovered (Forwarded)

Indian Space Research Organisation
Bangalore, India

January 22, 2007

Space Capsule Successfully Recovered

The Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1) launched by Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR,
Sriharikota on January 10, 2007 was successfully recovered today (January
22, 2007) after being maneuvered to reenter the earth's atmosphere and
descend over Bay of Bengal about 140 km East of Sriharikota.

Since its launch, SRE-1 was going round the earth in a circular polar orbit
at an altitude of 637 km. In preparation for its reentry, SRE-1 was put into
an elliptical orbit with a perigee (nearest point to earth) of 485 km and an
apogee (farthest point to earth) of 639 km by issuing commands from the
Spacecraft Control Centre (SCC) of ISTRAC at Bangalore on January 19, 2007.
The critical de-boost operations were executed from SCC, Bangalore supported
by a network of ground stations at Bangalore, Lucknow, Mauritius,
Sriharikota, Biak in Indonesia, Saskatoon in Canada, Svalbard in Norway
besides shipborne and airborne terminals.

Today, January 22, 2007, the re-orientation of SRE-1 capsule for de-boost
operations commenced at 08:42 am (IST [0312 UTC]). The de-boost started at
09:00 am [0330 UTC] with the firing of on-board rocket motors and the
operations were completed at 09:10 am [0340 UTC]. At 09:17 am [0347 UTC],
SRE-1 capsule was reoriented for its re-entry into the dense atmosphere. The
capsule made its re-entry at 09:37 am [0407 UTC] at an altitude of 100 km
with a velocity of 8 km/sec (29,000 km per hour). During its reentry, the
capsule was protected from the intense heat by carbon phenolic ablative
material and silica tiles on its outer surface.

By the time SRE-1 descended to an altitude of 5 km, aerodynamic breaking had
considerably reduced its velocity to 101 m/sec (363 km per hour). Pilot and
drogue parachute deployments helped in further reducing its velocity to 47
m/sec (about 170 km per hour).

The main parachute was deployed at about 2 km altitude and finally, SRE-1
splashed down in the Bay of Bengal with a velocity of 12 m/sec (about 43 km
per hour) at 09:46 am [0416 UTC]. The flotation system, which immediately
got triggered, kept the capsule floating. Recovery operations were supported
and carried out by the Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy using ships,
aircraft and helicopters.

During its stay in orbit for the last 12 days, the two experiments on board
SRE-1 were successfully conducted under micro gravity conditions. One of the
experiments was related to study of metal melting and crystallisation under
micro gravity conditions. This experiment, jointly designed by the Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre,
Thiruvananthapuram, was performed in an Isothermal Heating Furnace. The
second experiment, designed by National Metallurgical Laboratory,
Jamshedpur, was intended to study the synthesis of nano-crystals under micro
gravity conditions. This experiment can help in designing better
biomaterials having closest proximity with natural biological products. The
experimental results will be analysed in due course by the principal
scientific investigators of the two experiments.

The successful launch, in-orbit operation of the on board experiments and
reentry and recovery of SRE-1 has demonstrated India's capability in
important technologies like aero-thermo structures, deceleration and
flotation systems, navigation, guidance and control. SRE-1 is an important
beginning for providing a low cost platform for micro-gravity experiments in
space science and technology and return specimen from space.