CHENNAI, Dec 10:
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully conduced the Hot Test of Scramjet Engine for 11 seconds.
The test was conducted at ISRO’s Propulsion Research Complex at Mahendragiri in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu in the presence of ISRO Chairman and Secretary, Department of Space S.Somanath yesterday evening, ISRO sources said today.
With this test, the Indian Space Agency’s quest to fabricate credible next generation air breathing scramjet engines to launch satellites in a predetermined orbit at a low cost, crossed a key milestone. The scramjet was a more advance version of the ramjet engine and can operate efficiently at hypersonic speeds.
It allows supersonic combustion by breathing oxygen from the atmosphere during flight. It then allows the oxygen to mix with hydrogen already stored in the vehicle to trigger combustion and produce the desired thrust to lift the satellite to its designated orbit.
If the engine in the launch vehicle can breathe oxygen from the atmosphere, nearly 70% of the propellant that has to be carried in the vehicle can be reduced.
A scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow.
As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion (hence ramjet), but whereas a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion using shock cones.
Scramjet has no shock cone and slows the airflow using shockwaves produced by its ignition source in place of a shock cone. This allows the scramjet to operate efficiently at extremely high speeds. (UNI)
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