ISRO with scramjet engine technology,

ISRO with scramjet engine successfully test,

If you look at the schematics of a Scramjet (or Supersonic Combusting ramjet), it looks pretty straight forward – air gets sucked in from the front, fuel burns in middle and exhaust gas comes out of the back generating thrust. But this is where the simplicity of the design ends. Factors like air inlet design, air compressibility, complex flows, high temperatures, fuel injection, etc – make it really difficult to design a suitable scramjet powerplant. Scramjets are highly inefficient at low speeds, with their efficiency increasing at supersonic speeds.

So, why are scramjets important for ISRO? ISRO currently uses rocket launch vehicles like the PSLV to deliver satellites into orbit. PSLVs are expendable, meaning that can only be used once, and are designed to carry both fuel and oxidizer with for launch. Scramjets use ambient air to burn fuel, thus saving the need to carry an oxidizer – thus increasing the payload of a craft. ISRO claims that using Avatar for satellite launches will cut down launch costs by half. Since there are no rotating parts in a scramjet, the chances of failure are also measurably reduced.

The scientists said that all the important flight events such as the burn out of booster rocket stage and functioning of scramjet engines for 5 seconds followed by burn out of the second stage took place exactly as planned.