While experts are still evaluating an innovative inflatable reentry shield, the
IRDT, which successfully returned from orbit this month, its Russian manufacturer has already proposed to the European Space Agency (ESA), a project co-sponsor, a second flight of the device.
NPO Lavochkin, a Moscow-based company, which developed the IRDT technology, eyed a converted Navy ballistic missile as a carrier for the next test launch of the shield.
Konstantin Pichkhadze, who manages the IRDT project at Lavochkin, told SPACE.com that the Volna rocket would take off from a Navy test site in Northern Russia and carry the shield on the suborbital trajectory (without reaching orbit), landing on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.
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| The IRDT shield inflated for pre-flight inspection. Credit: ESA. Click to enlarge.
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| The IRDT shield inside interface adapter of the Soyuz launcher. Credit: ESA. Click to enlarge.
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| Flight certificates recovered with the IRDT device. Credit: ESA. Click to enlarge
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The Volna vehicle is derived from the RSM 50, a submarine-launched ballistic missile developed by Makeyev Design Bureau in the city of Miass, Russia.
The new IRDT test launch could take place as early as September, if funding becomes available, Pichkhadze said.
Pichkhadze expects Makeev representatives to visit Lavochkin next Friday to evaluate the project. NPO Lavochkin also hopes to discuss its proposal with European representatives at the end of March or beginning of April.
Dieter Kassing, managing the IRDT project for ESA, confirmed that Russian proposal for the second launch of the inflatable shield is under consideration.
"This is the idea, which was born in Russia and was forwarded to us as an unsolicited proposal…we are looking into it, however we do not have yet an opinion," Kassing said in the telephone interview.
ESA co-funded the original IRDT mission, together with the European Commission and
DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, DASA. The International Science and Technology Center, the Moscow-based intergovernmental organization dedicated to non-proliferation, awarded the contract to build the spacecraft to NPO Lavochkin. DASA built the sensor package for the project.
The first test results
Two IRDT devices were
launched on February 8 on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur. After a six-hour orbital flight, both successfully inflated and reentered. The smaller device was expected to return an experimental package from orbit, the second was carrying the Soyuz's Fregat upper stage.
The apparent failure of the radio beacons on both payloads, coupled with bad weather at the landing site in southern Russia
hampered the search efforts for several days. Currently, only the smaller reentry shield and its payload have been recovered. To save money, Lavochkin postponed the search for the larger shield, which was carrying Fregat, until spring.
In the meantime, experts evaluating the recovered IRDT device, concluded that late in the descent the pressure in the inflatable system suddenly decreased, apparently because of a tear, causing the spacecraft to descend at a higher than expected velocity, ESA announced.
As a result, the IRDT's protective layers were burning off more extensively than planned and experimental samples attached to the shield were torn off.
When the spacecraft hit the ground, its lower section containing sub-systems and a radio beacon was
damaged.
Experts are currently evaluating the data recorded by the DaimlerChrysler-built sensor package installed on the IRDT. According to ESA, the preliminary information confirms that all experiments in the sensor package worked perfectly.
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