India Set to Launch First Domestic Cryogenic Engine in April

GSLV Mark III engine test (Photo: ISRO)

India Set To Launch GSLV
Aviation Week

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) plans to launch India’s first cryogenic rocket engine next month, marking the end of a long effort to develop an indigenous upper stage for its Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).

The launch vehicle — GSLV-D3 — is in the final stages of assembly at the launch center on Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal. In place of the Russian engine that has powered the GLSV upper stage in the past will be India’s Cryogenic Engine. The all-indigenous vehicle will carry the GSAT-4 advanced communications satellite to orbit.

Developed by ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Center, the Cryogenic Engine will give the GLSV the ability to lift 2,200 kg. to geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). It generates 73 kilonewtons of thrust in vacuum, with a specific impulse of 454 sec., ISRO says.

India was forced to develop its own upper-stage engine after the U.S., worried about missile proliferation, pressured Russia to withhold cryogenic-engine technology from ISRO. As compensation, the U.S. paid Russia the $400 million it had expected to gain from the technology transfer to India for services it provided to NASA during the Shuttle-Mir program that evolved into the International Space Station.

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