ISRO tests system to recover spent rocket stages
- ISRO successfully tested a technology that could aid cost-effective recovery of spent rocket stages and safely land payloads on other planets.
Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD)
- Designed, developed and successfully test-flown by ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) on a Rohini-300 (RH300 Mk II) sounding rocket from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS).
- Opens opportunities for cost-effective spent stage recovery
- Can also be used in ISRO’s future missions to Venus and Mars.
- First time an IAD had been designed for spent-stage recovery.
- Function: decelerates an object plunging down through the atmosphere.