India’s budget mini space shuttle blasts off

• Eastern Eye Staff
• 24 May, 2016

By: Eastern Eye Staff

India successfully launched its first mini space shuttle on Monday as New Delhi’s famously frugal space agency joined the global race to make rockets as reusable as airplanes. The shuttle was reportedly developed on a budget of just one billion rupees (£9.6 million), a fraction of the billions of dollars spent by other nations’ space programmes. The Reusable Launch Vehicle, or RLV-TD, which is around the size of a minibus, hurtled into a blue sky over southeast India after its 7:00am (0130 GMT) lift off. After reaching an altitude of about 70 kilometres (43 miles), it glided back down to…

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