ISRO Hails Successful First Flight of GSLV Mark III Rocket
GSLV Mark III inaugural flight test. (Credit: ISRO)
SRIHARIKOTA, India (ISRO PR) — The first experimental flight (GSLV Mk-III X/CARE) of India’s next generation launch vehicle GSLV Mk-III was successfully conducted today (December 18, 2014) morning from Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota. Also known as LVM3-X/CARE, this suborbital experimental mission was intended to test the vehicle performance during the critical atmospheric phase of its flight and thus carried a passive (non-functional) cryogenic upper stage.
The mission began with the launch of GSLV Mk-III at 9:30 am IST from the Second Launch Pad as scheduled and about five and a half minutes later, carried its payload – the 3775 kg Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) – to the intended height of 126 km. Following this, CARE separated from the upper stage of GSLV Mk-III and re-entered the atmosphere and safely landed over Bay of Bengal with the help of its parachutes about 20 minutes 43 seconds after lift-off.
Two massive S-200 solid strap-on boosters, each carrying 207 tons of solid propellants, ignited at vehicle lift-off and after functioning normally, separated 153.5 seconds later. L110 liquid stage ignited 120 seconds after lift-off, while S200s were still functioning, and carried forward for the next 204.6 seconds.
CARE floats on ocean. (Credit: ISRO)
CARE separated from the passive C25 cryogenic upper stage of GSLV Mk-III 330.8 seconds after lift-off and began its guided descent for atmospheric re-entry.
After the successful re-entry phase, CARE module’s parachutes opened, following which it gently landed over Andaman Sea about 1600 km from Sriharikota, there by successfully concluding the GSLV Mk-III X/CARE mission.
With today’s successful GSLV Mk-III X / CARE mission, the vehicle has moved a step closer to its first developmental flight with the functional C25 cryogenic upper stage.
13 responses to “ISRO Hails Successful First Flight of GSLV Mark III Rocket”
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India may have an operational manned vehicle soon. Maybe before SpaceX or Boeing? Likely before NASA’s Orion.
This demonstration flight didn’t even test the heat shield properly. Re-entering from a ~100 kilometer sub-orbital trajectory will heat your craft enough that you can’t ignore it (see “feathering on SpaceShip 1/2), but nowhere near as much as from orbital velocity.
In other words: there is no way that India will have an operational manned spacecraft before SpaceX and Boeing.
They did get a successful parachute test though, which took Orion several aircraft drop tests to get to work.
definitely not before SpaceX / Boeing (both should be operational by 2017), and doubtful even before Orion is launched with people in 2021 (ish).
the earliest possibility for a manned launch by the ISRO is 2021, and i’d expect that date to slip by a few years. there isn’t even a launch vehicle for it yet.
ISRO are saying earliest date for crewed flight is 7 years; so not before 2022.
I’d add a couple of years to that just based on previous Indian schedules. The budget doesn’t allow them to do very much back to back. Launch GSLV rocket, wait a couple of years, launch another one. Same thing with their planetary probes. The only thing they really do on a regular basis is to launch the smaller PSLV rocket.
This vehicle only has a dummy third stage, and couldn’t put anything in orbit. Developments flights of the full vehicle aren’t to start until 2017.
Interesting design to that Indian service tower.
Indeed so.
http://www.lotussculpture.c…
I wonder if that design was intentional. I’d say definitely yes, but it could perhaps be subconscious/cultural. Also, I don’t think many (any?) US launch towers have been built with aesthetics in mind (they sure don’t look like it).
Anyway, it looks cool, and very Indian.
Contrast it to Russia’s intimidating construction (see attached image):
Congrats guys. The flight looked good!
Congrats India.
Things are looking good.