Taking
its baby steps towards realising India's ambition to send humans into
space, ISRO today successfully tested the atmospheric re-entry of a
crew module after its heaviest launch vehicle GSLV Mk-III blasted off
from here. Exactly 5.4 minutes after lift off at 9.30 AM from the
Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, the module
separated from the rocket at an altitude of 126 km and re-entered
Earth's atmosphere (about 80 km from sea level). It descended in a
ballistic mode and splashed down into the Bay of Bengal, some 180 km
from Indira Point, the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar
Islands. The LVM3-X flight with active S200 and L110 propulsion
stages and a passive C25 stage with dummy engine, carried CARE (Crew
Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment) as its payload. Weighing over
three tonnes, the 2.7-metre tall cup cake shaped crew module with a
diameter of 3.1 metres, which features aluminium alloy internal
structure with composite panels and ablative thermal protection
systems, was made to safely drop down into the sea by specially-made
parachutes from Agra-based DRDO lab Aerial Delivery Research and
Development Establishment. The experiment also witnessed the largest
parachute in action ever made in the country. The main parachute,
which helped the crew module touch the waters at around 7
metre/second speed, was 31 metres in diameter. Soon after the
successful test flight, a delighted ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan
said, "This was a very significant day in the history of Indian
space programme for the development of the advanced launch vehicle
that could carry a 4-tonne class of communication satellite into
orbit."
The
crew module, which can carry up to two to three astronauts, withstood
a heat of around 1,600 degree Celsius, while it travelled towards the
surface of the Earth attracted by gravity. The module would be
tracked by Indian Coast Guard ships and then taken to Kamarajar Port
in Ennore near Chennai, from where it would be shited to Vikram
Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala for further
study. This experimental mission has helped ISRO with two primary
lessons -- to study the flight validation of the complex atmospheric
flight regime of LVM3 vehicle and study the re-entry characteristics
of CARE crew module. "India started the development process a
decade ago and just now we completed the first experimental flight of
the GSLV Mark III vehicle christened as LVM Mark III,"
Radhakrishnan said from the Mission Control Centre. "The
performance of the two solid stages S200 as well as the liquid core
stage L110 was as expected," he said. "We also had another
experimental module in this mission that is the unmanned crew module
test to understand the re-entry characteristics. That also worked
extremely well and the crew module has splashed down as expected in
Bay of Bengal," he said. Radhakrishnan thanked the entire team
for making the project possible and added "with the completion
of the development of the high thrust cryogenic engine which has
progressed very well, we expect to come back with a developmental
flight of this vehicle LVM-3 in another two years."
This
is the first time ISRO was carrying a payload weighing over three
tonne. The national space agency's first space recovery experiment
(SRE-1) module, launched by a PSLV rocket in January 2007, weighed
only 555 kg and that too was not a crew module. Though it would take
at least 10 years for India to send humans into space, this
experiment has helped the space agency to test the module for safe
return of humans from space, according to ISRO. While the heavy duty
cryogenic engine is still under development in one of the ISRO labs
at Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu, today's attempt was to primarily study
the atmospheric performance of GSLV Mk III in the first two stages.
Once ISRO masters its GSLV Mk III, the country can save a massive
amount of the foreign exchange it presently is spending to send its
heavy communication satellites through other space agencies aboard.
The heavy launch vehicle would also help India earn considerable
foreign exchange by sending heavy satellites for other countries, in
addition to the revenue PSLV rockets are already securing for ISRO's
commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited. This CARE module is
expected to enhance ISRO's understanding on re-entry and parachute
phases of crew module. The total budget of the experimental mission
was Rs 155 crore, including the crew module, which cost Rs 15 crore.
Cryogenic
engine for GSLV Mk-III rocket to be ready in 2 years
The
cryogenic engine for the latest GSLV Mark III rocket capable of
carrying heavier payloads upto four tonnes, is expected to be ready
within two years, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said here today.
Announcing the success of the GSLV Mark-III (LVM3X/CARE) experimental
mission from the Mission Control Centre here, he said the cryogenic
engine was being developed at the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at
Mahendragiri in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. The GSLV Mk III
was today launched with active S200 and L110 propulsive stages and a
passive cryogenic stage (C25) with dummy engine. Radhakrishnan also
said ISRO was gearing up for the launch of another Indian Regional
Navigational Satellites System (IRNSS) series satellite in the first
week of March next year. The space agency has already launched three
of the seven IRNSS series satellites. The system would make India
join a select group of countries having their own navigation systems.
With
an eye on manned space missions, ISRO today successfully tested the
atmospheric re-entry of a crew module after its heaviest launch
vehicle, GSLV Mark-III, blasted off from here.
Following
is a list of launches made by ISRO on GSLV -- Vehicle Satellite Date
Weight Result
GSLV-D1
GSAT-1 Apr 18,2001 1,540-kg Successful
GSLV-D2
GSAT-2 May 8, 2003 1,825-kg Successful
GSLV-F01
EDUSAT
(GSAT-3) Sep 20, 2004 1,950-kg Successful
GSLV-F02
INSAT-4C Jul 10, 2006 Unsuccessful
GSLV-F04
INSAT-4CR Sep 2, 2007 2,130-kg Successful
GSLV-D3
GSAT-4 Apr 15, 2010 Unsuccessful
GSLV-F06
GSAT-5P Dec 25, 2010 Unsuccessful
GSLV
D5 GSAT-14 Jan 5, 2014 1, 982-kg Successful
GSLV-Mk-III
Dec 18, 2014 3,735-kg Successful
No comments:
Post a Comment