New Delhi, April 08: New Delhi – India is scheduled to launch an advanced communications and navigation satellite using for the first time a cryogenic engine developed by its own scientists, news reports said Thursday.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) – which is to put the satellite into orbit – is powered by the cryogenic engine. Its launch is scheduled from the country’s Sriharikota spaceport on April 15, the CNN-IBN news channel reported.
With a successful launch, India will join the US, Russia, France, Japan and China, who have also developed that technology.
Cryogenic engines are rocket motors designed for liquid fuels that have to be kept at very low temperatures, as they turn into a gaseous state at room temperature.
A successful launch would mark a milestone for India’s space programme as it would allow the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to launch heavier satellites in future, the report said.
Indian scientists have been working on the technology for nearly two decades now, ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said.
“This mission is more important than other launchers because we are testing the indigenous cryogenic stage in flight. This is a complex technology that uses liquid propellants,” Radhakrishnan was quoted as saying by the Hindu newspaper.
The cryogenic programme, which scientists have been working on since 1994, cost around 75 million dollars.
The US prevented Russia from transferring cryogenic technology to India in 1992, as Washington believed that India was using it to power missiles.
“Technology denial has made us take up the challenge to develop our own cryogenic engine for launching heavier satellites in the higher orbits,” Radhakrishnan said.
India, over the past few years, has been eyeing a share of the multi-billion-dollar satellite launch market.
Following the GSLV launch, ISRO is to launch five satellites in May including an Algerian remote sensing satellite, a domestically produced remote-sensing satellite Cartosat-2B as well as three educational satellites, two from Canada and one from India, local news outlets reported.
–Agencies