The Space Capsule Recovery Experiment II (commonly known as SRE-2) was an Indian re-entry demonstration experiment designed by the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...

(ISRO). It was a follow-on mission of

SRE-1 The Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SCRE or more commonly SRE or SRE-1) is an Indian experimental spacecraft which was launched at 03:53 UTC on January 10, 2007, from Sriharikota by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The launch w ...

which was successfully completed in January 2007. It was supposed to test some of the critical technologies for the Indian human spaceflight programme. The second mission was to carry three experiments devoted to biological science and an improved isothermal furnace with 1000 °C temperature to carry out materials science experiments. As of August 2016, SRE-2 is not mentioned in the ISRO official page.

Comptroller and Auditor General of India The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (ISO: ''Bhārata kē Niyaṁtraka ēvaṁ Mahālēkhāparīkṣaka'') is the supreme audit institution of India, established under Article 148 of the Constitution of India. They are empowered to au ...

released a report titled "Inordinate delay in realisation of SRE-2 mission" in 2014. Outcome Budget 2016-17 of

Department of Space The Department of Space (DoS) is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space programme. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space pr ...

mentions that development of space grade color camera and image storage unit for SRE-2 would be undertaken during year 2016-17. On 4 January 2018, SRE-2 project was declared to be cancelled.

Objectives

The main objective of SRE-2 was to realise a fully recoverable capsule and provide a platform to conduct microgravity experiments on Microbiology, Agriculture, Powder Metallurgy etc.

Design

SRE-2 capsule would have four major pieces of hardware: * Aero Thermo Structure (ATS) * Spacecraft platform * Deceleration and flotation system *

Microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

payloads New systems developed for SRE-2 included Carbon-Carbon Nosecone, Indigenous Beacons, etc.

Payloads

The SRE-2 was to carry three experiments devoted to biological science and an improved isothermal furnace with 1000 °C temperature to carry out materials science experiments. * The first experiment “Biological effects of Microgravity: A genomic and proteomics approach” is being developed in collaboration with CCMB,

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

and a biorack is being developed to enable this experiment. In this experiment, a colony of

E. coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

will be grown in microgravity condition and brought back to earth to carry out genomic and proteomic studies. Comparison of these with that obtained during bench mark ground experiments will enable us to identify the genes whose expression is affected by the

microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

. This experiment is designed to explore why microgravity alters some of the growth behaviour of the biological system. * A second experiment will carry a joint biological payload between

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

, and Indian Scientists at

ISRO The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister o ...

and CCMB. The payload is being developed by JAXA with close interaction with ISRO engineers. The experiment will carry

cynobacteria Cyanobacteria ( ) are a group of autotrophic gram-negative bacteria that can obtain biological energy via oxygenic photosynthesis. The name "cyanobacteria" () refers to their bluish green (cyan) color, which forms the basis of cyanobacteria' ...

which will be cultured under microgravity condition. The aim is to study the effect of microgravity on the photosynthetic ability of these bacteria. * The third experiment will carry seeds of

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

and medicinal plants that will be exposed both to microgravity and space radiation. A

dosimeter A radiation dosimeter is a device that measures the equivalent dose, dose uptake of external ionizing radiation. It is worn by the person being monitored when used as a personal dosimeter, and is a record of the radiation dose received. Modern el ...

will measure the amount of radiation. The exposed seeds will be planted on return and the growth of these plants will be compared with the plants of the unexposed seeds to evaluate the effect of microgravity and space radiation. The materials science experiments will be carried out in the modified isothermal furnace. The main experiment by scientists at

IIT Kanpur The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT- Kanpur or IIT-K) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. As an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), it was declared an Institute of National Importance by th ...

, is designed to study the effect of gravity on the liquid phase

sintering Sintering or frittage is the process of compacting and forming a solid mass of material by pressure or heat without melting it to the point of liquefaction. Sintering happens as part of a manufacturing process used with metals, ceramics, plas ...

behaviour of the powders. A model

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

alloy will be studied to explore the basic nature of the sintering process which has important implication in powder metallurgy.

References

Sources

The SRE-2 Mission

{{DEFAULTSORT:Space Capsule Recovery Experiment Ii Satellites of India Cancelled space missions Projects disestablished in 2018

Objectives

Design

Payloads

See also

References

Sources