Reusable Rocket Vehicle Test (RVT)

ISAS has conducted second flight test campaign of reusable rocket vehicle test (RVT) since 9. to 26. June at ISAS's Noshiro Testing Center in the northern part of Japan main island.

The test was completed after the three successive lift-off and vertical landing flights for demonstration of vertical landing, repeated flight capabilities and turnaround characteristics of liquid hydrogen-propelled rocket vehicle. The test vehicle was designedand built based upon studies and considerations of general technical issues in designing a future vehicles such as flight on demand, quick turnaround, higher performance, light weight structures and materials and so on. The performance of the present test vehicle is still very limited, however, many lessons were learned and more flight hardware oriented studies making use of repeated flight environment will be conducted. ISAS will do more works for the readiness of the fully reusable launch systems.

July 3, 2001