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Will India's cryogenic engine work this time?
Will India's cryogenic engine work this time? | ISRO | GSLV | Indian Express
CHENNAI: India will make a second bid to join the exclusive club of space-faring nations that employ cryogenic technology when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) once again tests its indigenously developed engine in its next rocket on Monday evening. This will be the seventh flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
When the first spacecraft with indigenously developed cryogenic stage (GSLV-D3) tumbled and plunged into the Bay of Bengal 293 seconds after lift off on April 15, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan had vowed to return to Sriharikota -- the countrys lone spaceport located nearly 100 km north of Chennai -- within a year to prove Team ISROs cryogenic capability.
Though he has done that without getting bogged down by the failure of
GSLV-D3 -- the maiden mission in his tenure as chairman from October 31, 2009 -- it needs to be seen if he gets it right in the second attempt.
The launch of GSAT-5P, an exclusive communication satellite weighing 2,310 kg, into space by GSLV-F06 will be keenly watched by the international spacefaring community as its sucess will be a proof of Indias cryogenic capability.
Scientists and engineers in ISRO are hopeful of the GSLV-F06 sucessfully placing the satellite in its geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) as the reason for the earlier GSLV-D3 flight conking off in the sky had been identified and corrective measures incorporated in the latest 51 metre tall rocket.
The spacecraft weighing 418 tonnes will be fired in three stages. The first stage has a core motor with 138 tonnes of solid propellant and four strap-on motors each with 42 tonnes of hypergolic liquid propellants. The second stage has 39.4 tonnes of hypergolic liquid propellant and the third is the cryogenic stage with 15.3 tonne of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
If all the stages fire as per specifications, the rocket will place the satellite on a GTO, from which it will be moved to 36,000 km high geostationary orbit. Once there, it will go around the earth for the next 13.7 years.
Fifth in the GSAT series, GSAT-5P is expected to augment the services provided by the Indian National Satellite System (INSAT). The commissioning of INSAT in 1983 with the launch of INSAT-1B satellite has brought about a revolution in the countrys broadcasting and telecommunication and meteorological systems.
Since 2001, the ISRO has been using the GSLV that can take satellites weighing 2,000 kg and above to space. Two of the six flights had failed. In the first five launches, the cryogenic stage had motors imported from Russia -- one of them failed in 2006. The sixth one had indigenously developed motors, but it also flopped.
The cryogenic engine is from Russia and not indigenous! The reporter needs to check his facts before reporting something
