India Developing Hyperplane

am pasting whole article since the site requires a login. thought it might b of interest to aircraft project afficionados.

www.defensenews.com...
Source: Defense News

India Develops Hyperplane Design
By VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI, NEW DELHI

India announced it has developed a preliminary design for a hyperplane, the most ambitious project of the state-owned Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Indian Parliament July 8 that DRDO scientists �have evolved� a hyperplane design based on �certain technology packages [which] are being developed with participation of academic institutions � However, no project has been sanctioned for developing a hyperplane.�

A senior DRDO scientist told DefenseNews.com on July 9 that the design for the hyperplane, called Avatar, is an effort by the Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Hyderabad; Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai; and the Aeronautical Development Agency, Bangalore.

The Avatar design is a kerosene-fueled, scramjet-powered vehicle and would be much cheaper to build and operate than hyperplanes under development in Germany, France and Japan, the DRDO scientist said.

The hyperplane would be able to take off from conventional airfields, collect air in the atmosphere on the way up, liquefy it, separate oxygen and store it on board for subsequent flight beyond the atmosphere, the scientist explained. He added that it could be put into orbit at around 250 kilometers above the earth and could fire missiles without being intercepted by the enemy.

�Avatar is primarily intended as a reusable missile launcher, one which can launch missiles, land back and be loaded again for more missions,� the DRDO scientist said.

DRDO has announced no timeframe for building an Indian hyperplane, and the scientist refused to discuss any details for possible construction.

-koji K.

[edit on 10-7-2004 by koji_K]

Good news

Great post

I wonder if china is upto something like this too
BTW India have increased their defence budget by 25% this year

The 'Aerobic Vehicle for hypersonic Aerospace TrAnpoRtation' (AVATAR) is a hyperplane concept from India. It is planned to be the size of a MiG-25 fighter and would be capable of delivering a 500 kg to 1000 kg payload to low earth orbit at a rather petty rate of $67 per kg assuming an airframe life of 100 launches.

Weighing only 25 tonnes - 60 per cent of which is liquid hydrogen fuel - Avatar is said to be capable of entering into a 100-km orbit in a single stage and launching satellites weighing up to one tonne.

It is also said that the AVATAR will make space solar power (SSP) stations affordable providing a global solution for the coming energy crisis. The idea being that a string of satellites in space will convert sunlight into microwaves and beam to earth where it will be turned into electricity. Till now SSP stations were unthinkable because of high cost of space launches but Avatar can change that, Indian scientists hope.


Operation
AVATAR would take off horizontally like conventional airplanes from conventional airstrips using turbo-ramjet engines that burn air and hydrogen. Once at a cruising altitude, the vehicle would use scramjet propulsion to accelerate from Mach 4 to Mach 8. During these cruising phases, an on-board system will collect air from which liquid oxygen will be separated. The liquid oxygen collected then would be used in the final flight phase, when the rocket engine burns the collected liquid oxygen and the carried hydrogen to attain orbit. The vehicle will be designed to permit at least a hundred re-entries into the atmosphere.

Apart from AVATAR, Andrews Space & Technology (USA) Alchemist TSTO RLV is another concept that aims to generate LOX in flight.

According to the Designers, Hyperplane projects of the 1980's - the X-30, Tu-2000 etc, failed due to their immense weight. Hence it is the weight which is the promising aspect of AVATAR.

Development
AVATAR or Avtar was first announced in May 1998 at the 'Aero India 98' ehxibition held at Bangalore. Initially it was then called the 'Aerobic Vehicle for Advanced Trans-Atmospheric Research', which means that it has now progressed into a more viable RLV and military role.


Avtar means rebirth in Sanskrit, signifying that it is a scaled-down version of the first 230-ton Hyperplane India promoted in the early 1990's but later abandoned because of its high cost, estimated at $10 billion to $12 billion.

The AVATAR is being developed by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation or DRDO. Air Commodore Raghavan Gopalaswami(Retd.), former chief of Bharat Dynamics Ltd, Hyderabad (which produces India's military missiles) is heading the project. He made the presentation on the space plane at the global conference on propulsion at Salt Lake City (USA) on July 10, 2001. Gopalaswami said the idea for Avatar originated from the work published by the Rand Corporation of the United States in 1987. "They threw the report into archives. It came to me as an unclassified document and formed the basis for our approach," he said.

The AVATAR is currently only in the conceptual stage. The initial development budget is only $5 million, but project supporters claim that the vehicle can be built in ten years with total funding of under $2 billion. Designers admit, however, that international assistance would be required for the project to reach its goal.

In addition to the DRDO team working on the conceptual design, development of technology components is being undertaken by as many as 23 academic institutions (IITs, IISc etc) in India as well. A Hyderabad-based private company CIM Technologies is also participating in the project.

Both the scramjet engine concept and the liquid oxygen collection process have already undergone successful tests at DRDO and at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. DRDO has approved further testing of the liquid oxygen process and assigned a team to conduct a detailed review of the vehicle�s design.

Currently DRDO plans to build and fly a scaled down version called Light-Avatar (LAVATAR?), weighing just 3 tonnes at take off. To be built by CIM technologies by 2006, mini-Avatar will not go into space but will demonstrate all technologies used in Avatar including oxygen collection. It will use the India's Kabini jet engine.

It is claimed that the real AVATAR would be viable by as early as 2013-2015(!) - provided international co-operation is available. This is highly unlikely, since 'cooperation' here would result in violating the Missile Transfer Control Regime (MTCR), which has been vigourously applied to India and Russia when India wanted tranfer of Cryogenic engine technology from the latter in the early 1990's.


Interestingly, AVATAR design has already been patented in India and applications for registration of the design have been filed in patent offices in the United States, Germany, Russia and even China.

Hypersonic flight is one of the most important objectives of space industry and science. It will open up a new way of travel, not only to space but to different parts of earth. A lot of research is going on all round the world to make it possible. NASA's X-43 is the biggest of them all. A lot of pioneering work is required. While India has done some ground experiments, it is still far from producing it's own air-breathing rocket engine. Indians have'nt even mastered cryogenic engines , technology now taken for granted in the west.

The primary objective of X-43 is to flight test the scramjet, which is the obvious first step in this direction. No other project has gone far as it has. The first test flight took place on 2 June 2001, which failed. Other AVATAR-like projects include USA's HyperSoar and erstwhile programs like Tu-2000 (Soviet Union) and X-30(US).

February 2002 - G. Madhavan Nair, Director Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) told journalists that "We have plans for a reusable two-stage vehicle which can take off and land like an aircraft". He expected this system to reduce existing launch costs by a factor of 10 (The Times of India, February 4, 2002). It is not clear what vehicle this is, whether it is a new concept or perhaps the result of continuing research on AVATAR.

Yeah right India and china developing hyper plane they cant even produce a fighter jet of their own so if I make a model out of plastic of a aircraft and do wind tunnel tests I am at the same stage as India and china are sorry but that doesn't qualify as having or producing a hyeprplane aircraft.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Yeah right India and china developing hyper plane they cant even produce a fighter jet of their own

so if I make a model out of plastic of a aircraft and do wind tunnel tests I am at the same stage as India and china are sorry but that doesn't qualify as having or producing a hyeprplane aircraft.

no one ever said india *had* a hyperplane.. they're just developing one. also, india and china both have developed fighter aircraft.

www.fas.org...

-koji K.

Westpoint please ensure you research more before posting.
Also i recomend you to shed all patriotism and prejudice, try being more prudent while posting

not really its not my style i just say whatever i want when i want you can research all you want but the indian and chinese fighters are at least 20 years back in terms of tech.

Another article dated August 8, 2002 that i found :

Indian rocket scientists claim to have designed a reusable space plane, dubbed Avatar, which they plan to use for launching satellites at very extremely low cost and taking tourists on rides into space The Times of India has reported.
According to the report, work on Avatar, has been conducted under tight security due to its military potential. In early July, the project was publicily announced in the United States by retired Air Cmdr Raghavan Gopalaswami, a former chairman of India's Bharat Dynamics Limited and the central figure behind the project which is being financed by India's Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO).

The project team includes scientists from DRDO - which has designed various missiles for India's defence forces including the Agni and Prithvi missiles. In addition, another Hyderabad-based company CIM Technologies is participating in the project.

The Times of India report says that the Avatar uses a unique design that enables the spaceplane tp produces its own fuel in flight and has been patented in India. Applications for registration of the design have also been filed with patent offices in the United States, Germany, China and Russia.

Weighing only 25 tonnes - 60 per cent of which is liquid hydrogen fuel - Avatar is said to be capable of enterinng into a 100-km orbit in a single stage and launching satellites weighing up to one tonne.

Taking off horizontally like a conventional airliner, Avatar will use a combination of turbofan, ramjet and scramjet engines to reach a cruising altitude of 10 kilometres before a cryogenic rocket engine takes over for the final push into space.

The mission over, it de-orbits, re-enters the atmosphere and lands on own power like an airplane. A single Avatar can perform 100 such missions in its life, which means 100 tonnes of payload in space.

According to the report, the critical feature of Avatar is that it does not carry any liquid oxygen at take off. Instead, the entire 21 tonnes of liquid oxygen required for the rocket flight will be produced during an initial hour long cruise through the atmosphere - where at eight times the speed of sound, Avatar will suck in air before separating the oxygen and liquifying it for storage.

Mr Gopalaswami told The Times of India that rather lifting satellites, the spaceplane can be fitted out to carry passengers, and that no special training would be needed, as "it would be like going in a Boeing 747."

Moreover, a trip into space on an Avatar would cost only a fraction of the $20 million that Dennis Tito paid Russia earlier this year for his trip on a Soyuz to the International Space Station.

Although all concepts used in Avatar have been mathematically proven and an engineering design has emerged, Gopalaswami told The Times of India that India would not be able to buuld Avatar alone and that international cooperation for both financing and technology would be essential if Avatar was to become a reality.

Meanwhile, the Avatar team in India will go ahead with a scaled down version called "mini-Avatar" and weighing just three tonnes at take off. To be built by CIM technologies in about five years, mini-Avatar will not go into space but will demonstrate all technologies used in Avatar including oxygen collection.

"It will use technologies available within the country," Gopalaswami said including the core engine Kabini developed for a light combat aircraft.

Gopalaswami said the idea for Avatar originated from the work published by the Rand Corporation of the United States in 1987. "They threw the report into archives. It came to me as anunclassified document and formed the basis for our approach," he told The Times of India.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
not really its not my style i just say whatever i want when i want you can research all you want but the indian and chinese fighters are at least 20 years back in terms of tech.

Nope.

Maybe they really meant to call it a "hype-er" plane. Because this is just the latest thread that attempts to hype the indian air force. I think these get posted on average about once a week or so, and are usually just the product of some U.S. Air Force wannabe dreamers.

[edit on 1/12/2005 by centurion1211]

Indian Technology

about 7,000 years ago ...

I knew India was developing the "avatar" hypersonic airbreathing plane a few years ago.

www.stratmag.com...

India is also working on space-based lasers and microwave weapons. Good on India. I just wanted to share something, that I am sure is on others minds too. It's great talking about Indian gadgets and gizmos, but when it becomes as frequent as a topic a day, by over-zealous and patriotic Indians, it's becomes very overbearing and annoying, especially when most on this forum are not interested. It sounds like bragging and that just makes people resent India. So please tone it down.

[edit on 12-1-2005 by Indigo_Child]

Stealth spy its kinda hypocritical of you to flame WestPoint23 for being patriotic when you brag about India quit often.

(recent example)
BTW India have increased their defence budget by 25% this year

Indigo_Child
It's great talking about Indian gadgets and gizmos, but when it becomes as frequent as a topic a day, by over-zealous and patriotic Indians, it's becomes very overbearing and annoying, especially when most on this forum are not interested. It sounds like bragging and that just makes people resent India. So please tone it down.

i agree

Is there any newer links and info on this? since this stuff all seems to be 2-3 years old and isn't current. For example: Nasa is finished with their X-43 program, and it was a success. (2 outa 3 ain't bad)

Stealth Spy
Avatar will suck in air before separating the oxygen and liquifying it for storage.

I think this will be one of the major taks in front of them.
Also, does anyone know what the plan to do with the heat? I doubt they will use fragile tiles, like the space shuttle.

I think its wierd that at mach 8 they plan to switch from scramjet engine to a rocket engine, why wouldn't they use there scram engine to keep building up speed? Many speculate the Scramjet can hit speeds of mach 15 - 20, Nasa proved that it can do mach 9.8, so I dont know why they dont use the engine more.

How much downtime are they predicting, and how many do they think they need?

I think its kinda stupid to have 3 different propulsion systems on one craft, especially when weight is a key issue. Personally I would go with either a PDE engine to get you from 0 to mach 10, then switch to an onboard rocket, or my other way I like is to have a Mothership craft that is fairly large and have it powered by a turbojet or turbo-ramjet engine and once going mach 4 have it release a scramjet only craft, capable of getting to the ISS, and it would be a glider landing craft.

my opinion of the whole project is that it will never get off the ground.

Stealth Spy, the AVATAR project is purely in the conceptual stages. Any discussion on the topic right now is purely speculatory. It is an open-ended research project by the various educational and research institutes.

As for development of a scramjet engine, that is another story. The uses for development of such an engine ranges from ballistic missiles to satelite launch vehicles.

As for a more recent article on the project, here's an article from Jan 1st of this year. The reporter had got a bit confused with some of the details, but its a good overview. No URLs though.

====

India aims to fly hypersonic plane in 2007
By VIJESH KAMATH
DH News Service, BANGALORE

Imagine travelling from Bangalore to London in less than three hours or cruising around the globe at 5,700 kms per hour! Even as the world is celebrating the centenary of powered human flight, India is all set to actively compete with Russia, France and the US to realise what is being dubbed as “one of the greatest aeronautical research challenge” — achieving sustainable hypersonic flight in atmosphere.

Speeds greater than Mach 5 or five times the speed of sound are called hypersonic, that’s travelling at speeds about 1.6 km per second or approximately 5,700 km per hour. A regular passenger plane flies at 0.8 Mach while fast military jets fly at Mach 2 (supersonic fighter aircraft). SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest jet flies at Mach 3.2. The fastest rocket-plane, X-15 flew once at Mach 6.6 way back in 1960.

The Hyderabad based Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) has now taken up the ambitious task of developing an engine that can maintain an aircraft at mind-boggling hypersonic speeds. “Technologically it is possible, but the task is very challenging. It is like sustaining a lighted candle in a hurricane,” DRDL Director Prahlada told Deccan Herald here.

An alumnus of UVCE and the Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Mr Prahlada is confident India will achieve the first actual flight of the engine by 2007. Presently in the configuration stage, the ground trials on the engine will commence next year, he said.

The scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjets) propelled by a special type of air-breathing jet engine, is the key enabling technology for sustained hypersonic flight. Mr Prahlada , who is also leading the integrated guided missile programme as chairman of the Programme Board which has the responsibility of realising, producing and deploying the missile systems Prithvi, Trishul, Akash and Nag, says the project is a more practical version of DRDO’s Aerobic Vehicle for Hypersonic Aerospace Transportation (AVATAR) envisaged to deliver a 500 kg to 1,000 kg payload to low earth orbit.

Another great challenge in designing a hypersonic plane, Dr Prahlada points out, is to build an aircraft that will withstand the temperatures experienced at high speed flight.

DRDL is working with the Mishra Dathu Nigam (Midani) to develop high temperature Nickel-Cobalt alloys and other exotic composite materials that can handle the heat associated with hypervelocity flight. In addition, the conceptual design, development of technology components are being jointly undertaken by the IITs, IISc and a few universities across the country, Mr Prahlada said.

India has another advantage in this sector, the aircraft could be integrated with proven rocket technology like that of Agni for providing the initial thrust during take off.

[edit on 12-1-2005 by rajkhalsa2004]

well this is like a 20 year leap in technology for india if successful....

Rajkhalsa you forgot about the X-43 that went like mach 9.6 or 9.8 or something fast.

Originally posted by SmokeyTheBear
Rajkhalsa you forgot about the X-43 that went like mach 9.6 or 9.8 or something fast.

I think he was referring to manned ones. otherwise all makes and models of rockets would be on that list as well.

HAHA. do i think india is developing a hyper plane? no way in hell. i dont even think the US has a hyper plane, and if we do, we have just aquired it, or have just recently aquired it. i dont think there is any way they are developing a plane of hypersonic travel. they MIGHT be looking into it, but as far as making one, no.