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If reducing the cost is the main goal via reusable space plane, Space Shuttle like systems aren't really that much helpful. You are still wasting 1st stage Booster/boosters and a 2nd stage (assuming Indian system is similar to Dream Chaser or X-37). Single Stage to Orbit (like Skylon) is only way you can get the cost down to less than $ 1000/kg. But like x-37, these systems have huge military implications. Like prolong Orbital Operation capacity
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No second stage or Fairing! Unlike Dream Chaser.
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Is this a full size prototype or scaled down version? What is the Lift Capacity ISRO targeting?
Is this a full size prototype or scaled down version? What is the Lift Capacity ISRO targeting?
Wow! Simply wow!!
SUPARCO's annual budget is probably less than 14 million USD which is the money India spent to launch this scale model, but that's not the point here.
Point being Space shuttle isn't a cheap way of launching satellites, that's why it was abandoned by USA and Russia. Now reusable rockets and Soyuz style capsules are the things to work for.
This was just a very small technology demonstrator which didn't go high enough for having any real reentry hazards. But even if a decade from now India does succeed in building a functional space shuttle, it's a thing of the past today, what chance it will have 10-20 years from now?
New Recruit
Seriously?
Dragon V2 is comparable to Soyuz capsule not Space shuttle.
Does this look familiar?
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Lesson from history # 4.....................USA used the shuttle tech and made newer platform BOEING X37B.
RIP reading comprehension.
You posted a video of Falcon (technically the heavy version is to be the carrier), which will carry Dragon V2, and had nothing to do with the thread topic:
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Dragon V2 is the successor to the US Shuttle Program:
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As it will return man space travel away from Soyuz:
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And back to a US platform.
No one compared it to the Shuttle or Buran, just noting that you're Falcon video isn't appropriate for this thread.
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I'd like to see an X-37b version of the RLV-TD sprout up for low-cost delivery of small platforms or "special missions:"
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The X-37B isn't typically used for satellite transfer though, irrespective of whether or not I'd like to see it used that way. It's for testing up-coming technologies to be used by the USAF and NASA, and for a bit of "other stuff" on the side.
Based on its flight profile, which amateur sleuths have been watching, it's missions can be tracked and or ascertained.
None of this is to say it can't be used as a satellite carrier either, it just isn't.