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India Successfully Test Fires Its Heaviest Rocket

Posted by timothy on from the might-roar dept.

vasanth (908280) writes India on Thursday moved forward in rocket technology with the successful flight testing of its heaviest next generation rocket and the crew module . The 630-tonne three-stage rocket, Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III, carried active solid boosters, liquid core stage and a passive cryo stage and a crew module to test its re-entry characteristics. This rocket is capable of doubling the capacity of payloads India can carry into space and it can deposit up to four tonne class of communication satellites into space. India also plans to use this rocket for ferrying Indian astronauts into space. For India, ISRO (the Indian space agency) perfecting the cryogenic engine technology is crucial as India can save precious foreign exchange by launching heavy duty communication satellites by itself.

4 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. $25 Million? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Interesting

    TFA says the firing cost $25 Million.

    NASA don't get out of bed for $25 Million.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:$25 Million? by sycodon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The demise of the Apollo program was probably the worst thing that ever happened to American space technology. We are just now regaining knowledge and capability we had in the 70s.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re:$25 Million? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They still haven't build the presumably rather expensive (deeply cryogenic) third stage, so don't count on the final version being so cheap. Plus the improving standards of living in India will inevitably push the price upwards, whereas Falcon development is definitely going to either push the price down or at least stabilize it at a rather low level, if at least one of 1) reusability or 2) increased launch frequency pans out. (The latter is almost certain.) And finally, the advertised Falcon 9 price tag is a market price (with profit margins included), whereas this is presumably just the total sum of expenses for this test (and without the third stage, it will be only a fraction of the launch expenses for the real thing).

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      Ezekiel 23:20
  2. Weird design by gman003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Those boosters aren't boosters, they're a side-mounted first stage, because the first liquid engine isn't even ignited until shortly before the boosters separate.

    The first stage, then, is a pair of pretty standard solid rockets. A bit under half the thrust of a Shuttle booster, and about a third the mass.

    The second stage is a pair of hypergolic liquid rockets, using UDMH and N2O4. Normally that's a sign of military heritage - hypergolic fuels are common in ICBM designs because they're storable at room temperature, and guarantee that the missile will at least launch. Purely civilian designs rarely use such fuels, because they're dangerous as hell, RP-1+LOX is cheaper, and you would generally prefer an aborted launch to an explosion. But in this case it actually makes sense - if you were on the ground and RP-1+LOX failed to ignite, you just try again tomorrow, but if you're already in the air, you're screwed if it doesn't ignite. It also gets about the same efficiency as RP1+LOX.

    The third stage is supposed to be LH2+LOX, but was not used on this test flight. Perfectly reasonable for an upper stage, where the low thrust is less important than the high efficiency.

    Overall, a bit different design than most rockets, but not in a bad way.