Bangalore, January 22
The Indian space programme today entered a new league with the Indian Space and Research Organisation (ISRO) demonstrating its ability to recover an orbiting satellite and bringing it back to earth successfully for the first time in its history.

Officials of ISRO here said the space capsule recovery experiment (SRE-1), besides helping ISRO to develop basic technology for developing re-usable launch vehicles, would also given an impetus to the country's quest for a manned space mission.

The SRE-1, which was launched by Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) from Sriharikota 11 days back, was successfully recovered this morning after it splashed down into the waters of the Bay of Bengal at 9.46 a.m. The 550-kg spacecraft was recovered by a team of the Coast Guard and Navy off the Ennore Coast and loaded on to a ship, “Sarang”, to be taken to Sriharikota via Ennore port.

Various systems were put in place today with the aerodynamic braking reducing the speed of the spacecraft before its re-entry into the atmosphere. Following this, a parachute system reduced the touch down velocity and a floatation system kept it afloat.

During its stay in orbit two experiments onboard the SRE-1 were successfully conducted under micro-gravity conditions. One of the experiments was related to study of metal melting and crystallisation in an isothermal heating furnace which was designed jointly by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanthapuram.

The second experiment, designed by the National Mettallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, was intended to study the synthesis of nano-crystals under micro-gravity conditions.