NEW DELHI, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- India is planning to launch a reusable launch vehicle (RLV) by early 2009, the Press Trust of India (PTI) Friday quoted a top scientist as saying.

    "We are working on a demonstrator of the reusable launch vehicle. We hope to launch it by early 2009," B N Suresh, director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, said in the south Indian city of Hyderabad.

    The reusable vehicle, which aims at testing hypersonic aerodynamics, will be launched from Sriharikota in southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s launch center.

    It would be a precursor to mastering technologies related to reusable launch vehicles and would take off vertically, go into the right atmosphere, then fly out of the dense atmosphere, the scientist said.

    The RLV is forerunner of the Indian version of the space shuttle. The unmanned vehicle will blast off like a rocket, come back like an aircraft and drop into the sea and can then be recovered.

    A reusable launch system is a vehicle capable of launching into space more than once. This contrasts with expendable launch systems, where each launch vehicle is launched once and then discarded.