After orbiting for 11 days in space, Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Space Capsule Recovery Equipment (SRE-1) launched to test recovery and re-entry techniques returned back to Earth safely on Monday morning, around 9.30 am as scheduled.

The space agency said the capsule splashed down in the Bay of Bengal, and added efforts are in progress to locate it and bring it ashore.

ISRO had launched the SRE-1 by Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) along with Cartosat-2 on January 10 from the launchpad in Sriharikota on the southeast coast. Polar had arrived in the orbit 16 minutes after its launch from spaceport. It took another four minutes to position the satellites.

Besides the two small Indian satellites, the PSLV-C7 rocket also injected two foreign-built satellites, the Lapan-Tubsat from Indonesia in collaboration with the Technical University of Berlin, and the Argentine-built Pehuensat-1, into the space.

The 550-kg SRE-1, designed to test re-entry vehicle technology that could be used in an upcoming manned space mission, is in the process of being recovered by the coastguard off the Ennore Coast near Chennai, so that it can be sent back to the Indian space agency.

The SRE, that according to the space agency’s official was also used to perform experiments in micro-gravity environment, is made of mild-steel, and comprises aero-thermo structure, spacecraft platform, deceleration, and floatation system and micro-gravity payloads.

"SRE is intended to test reusable thermal protection system, navigation, guidance and control, hypersonic aero-dynamics, management of communication blackout, deceleration and flotation system and recovery experiments", an ISRO official said.

Three parachutes, planned to slow down its speed five km above sea level, pyro devices, avionics packages of triggering unit and sequencer, telemetry and tracking system and sensors for measurement of system performance parameters are placed inside the SRE capsule.

The spindle shaped space Capsule’s successful return will play a crucial role in the country's plans to send an unmanned mission to the moon in 2008 and a manned space mission, not yet announced, at a lower orbit later. Bangalore-based ISRO aims to put an astronaut into space by 2014.

Before India, only three countries, Russia, United States and China have mastered this complex re-entry technology. This is country's first attempt to see if orbiting objects can be safely brought back to earth.

SRE was India’s first space launch since July when the launch of a communications satellite failed after the rocket carrying it turned aside from the course in the separation stage and exploded.