The first blow down test of the newly realised Trisonic Wind Tunnel was held on 8th December, 2022 at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. The Trisonic Wind Tunnel is a system to aid aerodynamic design of rockets and re-entry spacecrafts by characterizing a scaled model by evaluating forces, moments, load distribution, unsteady pressures, acoustic levels etc.

The tunnel has an overall length of about 160m and has a maximum cross section of 5.4m. The tunnel can be used for testing various space vehicles in three flight regimes – below the speed of sound, at the speed of sound and above the speed of sound: hence the name trisonic wind tunnel. The tunnel can simulate flight conditions from 0.2 times the speed of sound (68 m/s) to 4 times the speed of sound (1360 m/s).

The blow down was formally switched on by Shri S Somanath, Chairman, ISRO/Secretary, DOS in presence of senior officials of ISRO including Dr S Unnikrshanan Nair, Director, VSSC, Dr. V Narayanan, Director, LPSC and Dr D Sam Dayala Dev, Director,IISU.

The huge structure was built with several hundred tonnes of steel and was implemented through M/s Tata Projects India Ltd Mumbai in association with M/s Aiolos Engineering Corporation, Canada and fully realised by industries across India such as M/s Walchandnagar Industries, Pune, M/s Acoustic India, Tiruchirappalli, M/s Artson Engineering, Nashik, M/s Summits Hygronics, Coimbatore, M/s Hydrocare Fluid Power Systems, Bangalore and M/s Siemens Energy, Ahmedabad.

The trisonic wind tunnel is a major step towards India’s increasing self-reliance in Aerospace sector.