Last week I blogged about The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, the first important treaty on space law which was signed in 1967. In the same year another space treaty was signed called the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space. As the name implies, this treaty had to do with the rescue of astronauts landing in a signatory nation as well as the return of launched space objects which have landed to the country of origin. This agreement was created by a consensus vote in the United Nations General Assembly. Critics have said that the wording of the treaty was vague and subject to different interpretations.
        In 1972, the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects expanded on the liability provisions included in the Outer Space Treaty. This treaty says that any object launched into space from the territory of a signatory nation is the responsibility of the nation from which it was launched. Therefore, any damages caused by such a space object must be compensated for by the launching nation.
        The Convention on Registration of Launched Objects into Outer Space was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1974 and went into force in 1974. This treaty provides for the registration of any and all objects launched into space from any signatory nation. This registration includes the name of the state that launches the object, a unique designator or registration number, the date and location of the launch, basic orbital parameters and the function of the launched object. In 2007, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution to add additional information to the register including, Coordinated Universal Time, kilometers, minutes and degrees as standard units, additional useful information about function, geostationary orbital position for such satellites, change of status such as ceasing function, approximate date of orbital decay or re-entry, date and conditions of moving a space object to an orbit that permits disposal and any web links to official information on a space object.
         In 1979, the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies was drafted to turn over jurisdiction of all celestial bodies and orbits around them to the international community. All activities in space would have to conform to the United National Charter and other international law. Basically, this treaty bans the military use of celestial bodies and orbits and requires that all space activities must be reported to an international body. All exploration and exploitation of space must be acceptable to the international community and benefit all signatories. The treaty would also ban any declaration of sovereignty by a government or declaration of ownership by a private party of any celestial body or orbit. No nation capable of launching objects into space has signed on to this treaty to date.
       These five treaties constitute the major documents that cover legal matters with respect to the exploration and exploitation of space by signatory nations on Earth.

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           With all the talk about private space enterprise and exploring the moon, the issue of who owns what and who can stake a claim to exploit space resources has become significant. I thought that this would be a good time to post a blog entry about the main treaty that governs exploration and exploitation of space.
          The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies was “opened for signatures” in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union in January of 1967. As of the middle of last year, one hundred and two countries are participants in the treaty while another twenty seven signed the treaty but have not yet ratified it. The treaty forms the basic legal framework for international space law.
        One of the primary features of the treaty is banning the signatories from placing weapons, nuclear or otherwise, in orbit around the Earth, on the Moon or on any celestial body or anywhere in outer space. It restricts the use of the Moon to peaceful purposes and explicitly prohibits the lunar testing of any weapons, the conducting of any military maneuver, the establishing of military bases, installations or fortifications of any kind. The treaty does not prevent the placing of conventional weapons in orbit.
        Another feature of the treaty is the demand that the exploration of space and celestial bodies be done for the benefit of all countries and that there be no restriction on the exploration of space and celestial bodies by any of the signatories. All governments of signatory states are forbidden from staking a claim, by occupation, utilization or in any other way on any celestial body or zone of outer space because they are considered the “common heritage of mankind.” Member States do have jurisdiction over any object that is launched into space but they are also responsible for any damaged caused by such an object. The activities of any non-governmental entity on any celestial body or zone of space shall require authorization and ongoing supervision by the State from which they launch. If a member State is concerned that the planned or executed activities of another member State in space would cause potentially harmful interference with the peaceful exploration and use of outer space and celestial bodies by other member States, the concerned State may call for a consultation of member States to resolve the issue.
          In 1979, the Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies was drafted. This treaty would have turned jurisdiction of celestial bodies and orbits around them to the international community. This would have meant that outer space and celestial bodies would have to conform to international law, including the United Nations Charter. Among its provisions were a ban on exploration without approval of other States, a demand that any samples collected from a celestial body be available to other States, a ban on contaminating or deliberately altering the environment of any celestial body, bans ownership of any extraterrestrial property by any organization that is not international and governmental and requires that any resource extraction be made by an international organization. Unfortunately, this treaty failed to be ratified by any of the major space-faring nations.
         It may be possible to mine tritium on the Moon for use in terrestrial fusion reactors which would make the moon the source of a very valuable material. Now that private companies are planning on visiting the moon, the question of ownership of property and resources in outer space is very relevant.
Signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967:

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              There are many ways that the world could end. War, volcanoes, plagues, solar flares, etc. One disaster scenario that has gotten a lot of publicity is the possibility of a big asteroid strike that would destroy civilization. There have been attempts to catalog asteroids that regularly cross the orbit of the Earth that might pose a risk. There are a lot of that type of asteroid but the probability of any particular such asteroid striking us is very small. In addition to cataloguing suspects, there has also been a lot of speculation as to what we could possibly do if we discover that a large asteroid is headed our way. Today I am going to discuss a joint project by Canada and the U.S. to investigate a particular asteroid to try to determine whether or not it poses as significant risk.
            The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer is a United States space mission that will be the first space probe that returns samples from an asteroid. Canada will supply a critical laser based system called the Laser Altimeter at a cost of sixty million dollars. This device will be attached to the outside of the probe. It will create a high-resolution three dimensional map of the asteroid Bennu. These highly accurate maps will be used to help the mission engineers find a safe site where the probe can collect a sample. Canada will receive part of the sample that is returned to Earth as compensation for their contributions to the project.
           Bennu is sixteen hundred and forty feet across. It is one of the asteroids that regularly crosses Earth’s orbit and, therefore, could possibly collide with the Earth at some future date. Some researchers have calculated that there is a one in eighteen hundred chance that Bennu could hit the Earth in 2182. In order to refine the calculations, the researchers need to know the physical makeup of the asteroid. This is the question that OSIRIS-REx is intended to answer.
          OSIRIS-REx will be launched in 2016. It will take two years for the probe to rendezvous with Bennu. The probe will examine the geology of the asteroid for eight months. Following the creation of the details three dimensional maps, the probe will approach the asteroid and hover a few yards above it to allow a robotic arm to reach out and scoop up a sample of asteroid material. The probe will then head for Earth with an expected recovery sometime in 2023.
         The samples returned from Bennu will help researchers answer questions about the origins of the solar systems, the presence of valuable minerals and possible ways to destroying or deflecting asteroids that threaten the Earth.
Artist’s conception of Bennu probe:

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         At the dawn of the Atomic Age, there was talk of using nuclear bombs for civilian purposes such as digging canals and harbors. In the Soviet Union, there was even a plan to use nuclear bombs for fracking natural gas. Fortunately this plan was never carried out. However, it turns out that these proposals were tame in comparison to ideas expressed by an astronomer named Fred Zwicky at CalTech.  
        Zwicky was the first astronomer who conceived of dark matter, supernovae and neutron stars. He presented many advanced theories in academic articles, newspaper interviews and magazine articles between the 1940s and the 1960s. He was highly critical of his fellow scientists. He felt that they lacked vision to really make use of advanced technologies. He once said that “Astronomers are spherical bastards. No matter how you look at them they are just bastards.”
        One of his ideas was something called a “terrajet.” He claimed that it would make it possible to send missiles directly through the Earth to attack an enemy from beneath. He envisioned that the terrajet would gather rock and dirt in and then blow it out through an exhaust system as they tunneled.
        Zwicky had a plan to colonize the solar system with nuclear bombs. He thought that Venus and Mercury could be moved further away from the sun into the habitable zone with a series of nuclear explosions. He also had the idea to use nuclear bombs and the terrajet to reduce the size of Jupiter to the point where it could be inhabited. The debris left over from carving up Jupiter was to be added to the moons of Jupiter to make them more suitable for colonization.
       If a planet or a moon lacked sufficient atmosphere, he thought that the terrajet earth borer could produce oxygen and water as byproducts of digging channels for lakes and rivers. If a planet or moon had a poisonous atmosphere, nuclear bombs could be used to blow it off. He claimed that it should be possible to build nuclear bombs that would not create a high level of radioactivity when detonated. This would mean that the planets that were terraformed with nuclear bombs would not be rendered uninhabitable by radiation generated by nuclear explosions.
           As wild as these ideas are, Zwicky had even more outrageous plans for space exploration. He claimed that it should be possible to accelerate the sun by triggering nuclear fusion reactions on the surface of the sun. Properly positioned, such reactions would cause the sun to eject huge solar flares that would impart momentum to the sun. This was to be accomplished  by injecting particles of the proper composition and size into the sun to trigger the reactions. As the sun was accelerated in a particular direction, it would drag the planets along with it. So, in essence, the whole solar system would become a sort of spaceship.
        It will be decades or more before these ideas are even theoretically possible whether or not they are a good idea.
Fred Zwicky:

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         The start of the Space Age is usually thought to be the launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957. While Sputnik was the first Earth orbiting satellite ever launched and did start the Space Race, the actual roots of the Space Age reach back much earlier to World War II.
         The Germans developed and deployed the V-1 missile against the British. The V-1 was a liquid fuel rocket that was twenty feet long with a range of one hundred and fifty miles. The first V-1 was launched on June 13, 1944 and was followed by eighty five hundred more. The V-2 was fifty feet long. There were over four thousand V-2 launched between September 6, 1944 and March 27,1944.
          When Germany was defeated in World War II, the United States captured eighty eight of the rocket scientists who had worked on the Nazi rockets and brought them to the U.S. in Operation Paperclip. The U.S. authorities tried to keep the program as secret as possible fearing a public backlash. The U.S. was concerned that that Russians would make swift use of the German rocket scientists that they had captured to advance their missile technology and the U.S. did not want to fall behind.
          Werner von Braun was one of the principle architects of the Nazi missile programs including the V-1 and the V-2. With allied forces advancing in the spring of 1945, von Braun called his engineers together to decide who they wanted to surrender to. Afraid of the notorious cruelty of the Soviet army, they opted to surrender to the U.S. After being moved to central Germany, the missile program was supervised by the SS who had order to execute the engineers if they were in danger of being captured. Von Braun managed to get his people dispersed to nearby villages under the pretext of being less of a target for U.S. bombing raids. When von Braun’s brother encountered a U.S. soldier, he offered the surrender of Von Braun’s group.
        Von Braun and his team were brought to the U.S. under Operation Paperclip to work on ballistic missiles. They worked on instructing American engineers in rocketry and refurbishing V-2 missiles that had been captured by the U.S. for the next five years. Von Braun had always been interested in the use of rocket technology for space exploration. In 1950, he published an article about the possibility of rocket flights to the moon. There were two movies released in 1950 about flights to the moon. The seeds of the Space Race were sown by this wave of interest in space exploration.
       When the Korean War broke out in 1950, Von Braun and his engineers were moved to Huntsville, Alabama to work on developing the Redstone rocket which was used for the first nuclear ballistic missile tests. Following the war, von Braun and his team developed the Jupiter-C rocket based on the Redstone missile. This rocket was used to launch the first U.S. satellite, the Explorer 1, on January 1, 1958.
       NASA was created in 1958 to develop the U.S. space program. In 1960, NASA opened the Marshall Space Center to work on the Saturn rockets that could lift heavy payloads into orbit or to send them beyond Earth orbit. Von Braun and his people were officially transferred to the Marshal Space Center and he was named director of the center. Von Braun was finally able to concentrate of developing rockets for space research and exploration and the U.S. was off and running in the Space Race.
Werner von Braun:

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         I have posted many essays on nuclear weapons on my nuclear blog at nucleotidings.com. Most people are not aware or are not bothered by the fact that the United States and Russia both have about fifteen hundred nuclear missiles aimed at each other that can launch in minutes. As I have posted before, the U.S. missile forces has low morale all the way up to the generals in charge. Russia has been carrying on with the nuclear weapons left over from the Soviet Union and the Cold War but there are reports of degradation in their infrastructure and the preparedness of missile forces.
       Twenty years ago in 1995, Norway launched a rocket to study the Northern Lights. A Russian radar station five hundred miles away detected the launch on radar. Their analysis of the trajectory suggested that the missile could have been launched by a U.S. Trident submarine to blind Russian radar as a prelude to a nuclear first strike by the U.S. The Russian military was put on high alert and the President activated his nuclear launch system. The Russians realized that the launch was a perfectly innocent sounding rocket and they did not launch their missiles. At that time, Russia still had the old Soviet system in place for monitoring U.S. continental missile launch sites.
        The Soviet monitoring system consisted of two types of satellites. One type of satellite was launched into a highly elliptical orbit. The angle of observation for the satellite makes it easy to see missile launch plumes against the backdrop of space. It was thought that this type of satellite would be able to easily distinguish missile launches from natural phenomena. However, in 1983, one of these satellites mistook sunlight reflecting off a high layer of clouds for a missile. Currently, there are two of this type of satellites in service, the Cosmos-2422 and the Cosmos-2446.
        In order to deal with the false alarms from the first type of satellite, a second type of satellite was launched. This type of satellite flies in an geostationary orbit. It orbits at the same rate of the Earth’s rotation and so remains stationary over a particular spot on the Earth. In the case of this type of Russian satellite, it is positioned directly over the continental U.S. The Russian Cosmos-2479 satellite was the only geosynchronous monitoring satellite they had. These two types of satellites in combination are much more reliable that either type alone. It was recently announced by Russia that the Cosmos-2497 has stopped functioning. With their only geostationary satellite gone, the Russians are back to relying on the two highly elliptical orbit satellites which have already been shown to be prone to mistakes.
          I appreciate all the work that has been done on nuclear disarmament, especially between the U.S. and Russia but there is a great deal more that needs to be done. As I have pointed out in other posts, only ten percent of the U.S. or the Russian nuclear arsenal might be enough to cause a nuclear winter that would end human civilization. It is critical to the future of the human race that the threat of nuclear war be eliminated as soon as possible.
Cosmos-2479 geostationary satellite:

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         The first British space program began in 1959 with the Ariel series of six satellites which were built in the U.K. and the U.S. The satellites were launched by N.A.S.A. from U.S. sites. Ariel 1 was launched in 1962. The last of the six Ariel satellites was launched in 1979. Four of the satellites relayed back information about the Earth’s ionosphere. The other two were dedicated to X-ray astronomy and cosmic-ray studies.
         Between 1959 and 1985 Britain constructed and lauched several different types of space rockets. Rockets were tested on the Isle of Wight and at the Royal Air Force Spadeadam in Cumbria. Rockets were tested and launched from Woomera in South Australia. Blue Streak was a medium range ballistic missile that was intended as a nuclear delivery system but the project was cancelled in 1960 because it was too expensive. Then the government decided to incorporate Blue Streak into a satellite launch vehicle called Black Prince. The Black Knight rockets were designed to test the design of a reentry vehicle for the Blue Streak missile. Twenty two Black Knight rockets were launched between 1958 and 1965. The proposed Black Prince rocket would include a Blue Steak first stage, a Black Knight second stage and a solid fueled military rocket for a third stage. Black Prince was cancelled in 1960 in favor of British participation in the European Launch Development Organization.
        The Black Arrow rocket was based on the design of the Black Knight rocket. It was launched from Woomera in Australia in 1969. In 1972, the last Black Arrow rocket carried the Prospero X-3 satellite into Earth orbit.. Prospero X-3 is the only British satellite ever placed in orbit by a British launch vehicle.
         Skynet is a British military satellite program. Skynet provides strategic communication for the British Armed Forces and N.A.T.O. The first Skynet sattelite was launched in 1969. The last Skynet satellite launch to date took place in 2012.
         By 1972, British funding for both the Blue Streak and Black Arrow had ceased and no other British space rockets were developed. In 1982, the British launched the Horizontal Take-Off and Landing project to create a space plane that could use air-breathing engines while in the Earth’s atmosphere. It would have a single stage and would be able to reach Earth Orbit after taking off from a horizontal runway. The British government ultimately cancelled the program and ended funding.
         In 1985, the British created the British National Space Center to coordinate all space related activities. The British did contribute seventeen percent of the budget for the European Space Agency science program and the Aurora program which was established in 2001. The Aurora is a human space program aimed at the exploration of the solar system with robotic probes and human astronauts. Britain did not contribute to the Internation Space Station because they did not believe that it would be worth the cost.  
        The goals of the British space program are “win sustainable economic growth, secure new scientific knowledge and provide benefits to all citizens.” The British have never harbored ambitions to have an indigineous human space flight capability. They have relied on the U.S. and other nations to launch their satellites and they are participating the the European Space Agency.

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   In 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle created the National Center for Space Studies as a “public administration with industrial and commercial purpose” under the French Ministries of Defence and Research. CNES was established to focus on five areas of interest: access to space, civil applications of space, sustainable development, science and technology research, security and defense. France was the third nation to achieve access to space after the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
        Work on the Diamant series of rockets began in 1962. The Diamant series was derived from French military rockets. It was the first French expendable satellite launch vehicle. It was also the first satellite launch vehicle not built by the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. The Diamant rockets have three stages. Hammaguir is a launch site in Algeria which was used by the French to launch sounding rockets and the first Diamant model rockets between 1947 and 1965. The Hammaguir launch facility was closed in 1967.
       Between 1965 and 1975, nine of twelve Diamant launch attempts were successful. The Diamant had three different models. The first model was known as the Diamant A was sixty feet tall and weighted eighteen metric tons. It was used from 1965 to 1967 to launch four small satellites.
       In 1965, France used a Diamant A to launch its first satellite called the Asterix which was the sixth satellite launched into Earth orbit by any nation. The Asterix weighted about ninety pounds. Its orbit was highly elliptical with a minimum altitude of three hundred miles and twenty five miles and a maximum altitude of one thousand fifty miles.
       The second model, the Diamant B, had a more powerful first stage. From 1970 to 1973, the Diamant B successfully launched three satellites and failed in two other launch attempts. These missions were launched from the Guiana Space Center near Kourou in French Guiana in South America which was completed in 1969. The Diamant B was seventy seven feet tall and weighted twenty four metric tons.
        The third model, the Diamant BP4 incorporated a new second stage. It was used to successfully launch four satellites in 1975. These launches also took place from the Guiana Space Center.
         CNES partnered with other European countries on the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative. This program launched a series of satellites to observe the land, oceans and the atmosphere. CNES, along with other European nations, is part of the Galileo navigation program. CNES has launched a number of satellites to support the French military. CNES is working with different nations on a wide variety of space projects including orbital telescopes, planetary probes, earthquake detection, water cycle observation, radiation analysis, soil moisture tracking and ocean salinity monitoring.

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          South Korea’s first encounter with modern rocketry occurred as the U.S. moved missiles into S.K. to counter the North Koreans after the Korean war. The Korean Aerospace Research Institute was founded in 1989 in Daejeon, Korea primarily for the purpose of aerospace research. Its mission was to “Perform basic and applied studies in aerospace technology”, “Perform government-delegated tasks and support policy development”, “Support industries and transfer technology.”
          In 1990, KARI began working on the KSR series of rockets. The KSR-1 was a one stage rocket and KSR-2 was a two stage rocket. In 1997, KARI began work on KSR-3 which was fueled with LOX/kerosene in order to launch satellites. A test launch of the KSR-3 took place in 2002.
         KARI began working on the KOMPSAT satellite program to “nuture Earth-imaging and remote sensing capability for Korea” in 1995. The Arirang-1 was the first satellite designed and built by KARI. It was launched into orbit aboard a U.S. Taurus rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in 1999. Foreign-built satellites had been launched previously by Korean companies previous to this launch. The Arirang-1 carried a camera that was able to resolve objects of twenty feet across or larger.
        The  two hundred pound Science and Technology Satellite STSAT-1 was launched by a Russian Kosmos-2M rocket in 2003
        The Naro space center was constructed in the early 2000s about three hundred miles south of Seoul. It contains a launch pad, a control center, rocket assembly and test facilities, facilities for satellite control testing and assembly, a media center, an electric power station, a space experience hall and a landing field.
        The Arirang-2 was a seventeen hundred pound multifunction satellite designed and built by KARI and launched on a Russian launch vehicle from Plesetsk, Russia in 2006. The satellite orbits at about four hundred miles fourteen times a day. This satellite has a camera that could resolve objects as small as three feet across. One of the purposes of this satellite is to track North Korean military developments and movements. Some of the uses that Arirang-2 imagery have been for land planning, checking for crop diseases, urban planning, military applications and civil engineering for planning routes for roads, railroads and pipelines.
       In 2006, South Korea selected two candidates for astronaut training from over thirty six thousand applicants. They were sent to Russia for training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in 2007. In 2008, the prime candidate took off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz TMA-12 launch vehicle. She spent ten days doing experiments at the International Space Station.
       The two hundred pound STSAT-2A was developed by KARI for indigenous research and development to place a satellite into low Earth orbit, development of indigenous spacecraft and the development of scientific payloads. It was launched in 2009 aboard the first Naro-1 rocket. The Naro-1 rocket was developed by Russia and South Korea. The first launch failed. A second launch in 2010 failed. The third launch attempt in 2013 was successful and represented the first time a South Korean satellite was launched into orbit on a South Korean rocket from South Korean soil.
       South Korea is currently working toward another satellite launch in 2019. The launch vehicle will have four clustered engines which can each generate seventy five metric tons of thrust.
STSAT-2A:

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          Rakesh Sharma was the first Indian citizen to fly into space. He was carried into orbit aboard a Russian spacecraft in 1984. In August of 2007, the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization stated that they were “seriously considering” developing a human spaceflight program. Around sixteen million dollars was allocated for 2007 and 2008 for preliminary “pre-project” initiatives to develop a fully autonomous orbital vehicle that can carry a crew of two into low Earth orbit. A budget of about eight hundred and fifty million dollars was allocated for the planning period of 2007 to 2012 by the Planning Commission. It is estimated that over two billion dollars will ultimately be required for the manned space mission which is due to launch in 2016.
          An astronaut training facility will be built in Bangalore to support the manned space program. A third launch pad will be constructed at the Satish Dhawan Space Center  in Sriharkota dedicated to the manned program. It will feature extra support capabilities such as methods of entry from the crew and an escape chute in case of emergency.
         Testing on equipment for the manned missions began when the thirteen hundred pound Space Capsule Recovery experiment was launched into orbit aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in January of 2007. It was “designed to demonstrate the capability to recover an orbiting space capsule, and the technology of an orbiting platform for performing experiments in microgravity conditions. It was also intended to test reusable Thermal Protection System, navigation, guidance and control, hypersonic aero-thermodynamics, management of communication blackout, deceleration and flotation system and recovery operations.” the SCR used silicon tiles for a heat shield for reentry. The ISRO is working on carbon composite heat shields for future missions.
         The SCR was successfully recovered from orbit twelve days after launch. A network of ground stations across the Earth was utilized to assist in de-orbiting the capsule. It was brought down from its four hundred mile circular polar orbit and reentered the atmosphere at about sixty miles. Parachutes lowered its velocity down to about one hundred and sixty miles an hour. When it splashed down, floatation devices were triggered.
          The primary objective of the Indian manned mission program is to develop the fully autonomous three ton ISRO Orbital Vehicle spacecraft. It will be able to carry a two member crew into orbit and return them safely to Earth after a few orbit. The launch vehicle will be a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch  Vehicle Mark II which has a cryogenic engine. The OV will splash down in the Bay of Bengal. The OV will be have an extendable version which will be able to rendezvous and dock with space stations. In 2009, a full scale model of the OV crew capsule was built and delivered to the Satish Dhawan Space Center to help train Indian astronauts. India has signed an agreement with Russia to assist them in the design and construction of the OV.
Indian Orbital Vehicle:

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