India has designed a 25t reusable horizontal take-off and landing, air-breathing orbital spaceplane, dubbed Avatar.
Powered initially by turbofan, ramjet and scramjet engines, its cryogenic engine would ignite at 33,000ft (10,000m) altitude, using 15t of onboard liquid hydrogen and 21t of atmosphere-derived liquid oxygen.
India first plans to develop a 3t "mini-Avatar" for demonstration purposes to be built by CIM Technologies within five years. The full-scale craft would require international funding for development in 10 years. Avatar would be able to fly 100 missions carrying up to 100t of payload.
Meanwhile, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says the country's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, with alternate liquid- and solid-fuel stages, will launch the Indo-French atmospheric research satellite Megha Tropiques in 2005.
ISRO and French space agency CNES have signed a memorandum of understanding to design and develop the satellite, which will be based on CNES's Proteus platform.
From its orbit at 867km and an inclination of 20í, Megha Tropiques will collect atmosphere and climate data.
Source: Flight International
