ISRO has achieved a third consecutive success in the final test of RLV Landing EXperiment (LEX), following the success of RLV LEX-01 and LEX-02 missions.

• RLV LEX is part of RLV-Technology Demonstration Programme, which aims to develop essential technologies for a fully reusable launch vehicle to enable low cost access to space.
  • Under it, a series of TD missions including HEX-01 mission (2016), three LEX missions have been conducted and RLV Orbital Re-entry Experiment (ORE) has been planned.

About RLV LEX-03

• This mission simulated high-speed landing conditions for a vehicle returning from space.
• Test was conducted with a winged vehicle, named ‘Pushpak’ which autonomously approached the runway and performed a precise horizontal landing.
  • Unlike the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 that lands back vertically, Pushpak has wings to help it glide horizontally.

ISRO’s RLV-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) Vehicle

• RLV-TD has been configured to act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies, namely, hypersonic flight, autonomous landing and powered cruise flight.
• It consists of a fuselage (body), a nose cap, double delta wings and twin vertical tails and looks similar to an aircraft.
• RLV-TD will be scaled up to become the first stage of India’s reusable two stage orbital launch vehicle.