What Isro achieved in Sunday’s successful Scramjet (supersonic combustion ramjet) launch is not just an incremental improvement on its record, but a major advancement that puts it in elite company, with the US, Russia and European Space agency. Scramjets are conceptually simple — they draw atmospheric oxygen while gaseous fuel is carried onboard, but this is challenging as the fuel mix must be injected, mixed and burned in milliseconds at supersonic speeds. What the Scramjet engines can do is not only in simplistic financial economy by up to 10 times of normal rocket launches with oxygen fuel, but actually represent a springboard to fuller and more fulfilling space travel.
Isro has been the most elite of Indian institutions. It conquered tech well enough to place satellites ecvonomically in orbit as we saw in the last exercise in which it launched 20 satellites at one go. What the Scramjet tech experiment represents is Isro pushing the frontiers of technology, that will make it a world leader in launches, with hypersonic air breathing dual ramjet engines with variable geometry air intake. Isro may not be satisfied with just being a kind of courier service in sending satellites for all into space orbit. Its plans beyond Mangalyaan suggest that our scientists are pathbreakers in an exercise that is far more significant than, say, the hunt for Olympic medals.
