Mumbai: Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have developed a new technology for increasing the range of high speed space vehicles including missiles.
"This technology reduces drag of high speed space vehicles which dictates the range of the missile for a given amount of fuel," Prof K P J Reddy of Department of Aerospace Engineering told PTI.
"The thrust generated by the rocket engine must compensate for the drag encountered by the missile in its path," he said.
"This technology involving spray coating of the high speed missiles and other space vehicles can be used in the existing stockpile of missiles," Reddy, leading a team of scientists who developed it, said.
"This method will ensure that without spending any additional energy the overall aerodynamic drag of the vehicle can be controlled and this in turn will improve the efficiency of the hypersonic flight of the vehicle. This is a very attractive technique for controlling aerodynamic drag of the vehicles flying at hypersonic Mach numbers," Reddy said in the recent issue of Physics of Fluids Journal.
The technology has been demonstrated by the scientists Vijay Kulkarni, G M Hegde, G Jagdeesh and E Arunan of the high enthalpy aerodynamics laboratory in the Department of Aerospace Engineering.
The IISc scientists have got Indian patent for the technology, Reddy said.
