India is planning to mine the Moon for energy that will help the country build a first-of-its-kind 'hypersonic' aircraft, which would travel 25 times faster than the speed of sound, a noted scientist said on Tuesday.
It will be the first for any country to have launched such an aircraft, Press Trust of India reported citing former DRDO R&D chief controller A Suivathanu Pillai.
The scientist said that the technological marvel would be a future plan as it would not be easy to mine the Moon for the 'Helium III', an energy needed to make an aircraft that travels at such an unimaginable speed. The plan, which will be executed within a year, is set to be out for the aircraft that would hit long-range targets from the air, the scientist said.
The former MD and CEO of BrahMos Aerospace said the hyper-plane to hit long-range targets would be made using hydrogen-based fuel.
"When you talk about hyperplane, you talk about increasing the speed. Our idea is to use hydrogen-based fuel for Mark25, which will be 25 times faster than sound. The speed would be about 25,000kmph. That is the type of hyperplane we are conceiving," he was quoted as saying.
He further revealed plans by ISRO and DRDO to develop hypersonic technology using Helium III as fuel. Helium III is an energy that is available on the Moon.
"For future energy, we are looking at fusion technology. When we apply fusion technology to Helium III, we get enormous power. But Helium III is not readily available. You have to mine it from the Moon, bring it and then purify it," he said adding that these plans were under progress and they are not easy to execute as many countries have tried and failed at this.
Pillai, was recently awarded with the 15th Lal Bahadur Shastri Award by President Pranab Mukherjee.
