Monday, August 19 will be a crucial day both for India as well as K Radhakrishnan, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The country’s heavy rocket launcher Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with GSAT-14, a communication satellite on board will lift off from Satish Dhavan Space Centre, India’s gateway to the space, at Sreeharikotta, in Andhra Pradesh at 4.50 pm .
The success of the mission will decide India’s capability to launch heavy earth observation and communication satellites into the Geo Stationary Orbit, at an altitude of 36,000 km from the earth.
What makes this mission unique is the indigenously developed cryogenic engine. This was designed, developed and built at Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre of the ISRO at Mahendragiri, in Tamil Nadu. If the mission succeeds, India need not depend on the European Space Agency to launch its heavy satellites. The ESA charges exorbitant rates for launching heavy communication satellites.
Though India has launched seven GSLV missions from SDSC, five of them ended in failures. ISRO’s mission in 2010 to put into orbit a communication satellite with the GSLV powered by indigenously developed cryogenic engine failed. All other missions had Russian- built cryogenic engines.
According to Devi Prasad Karnik, ISRO spokesman, the cryogenic engine provides more thrust for every kilogram of fuel it burns compared to solid and earth-storable liquid propellant fuels. “Efficiency achievable with cryogenic propellant is much higher compared to earth storable fuels. The fuel used in cryogenic engine is liquefied oxygen and hydrogen. These gases could be liquefied and stored only at sub-zero temperatures; -183 and -253 degree Celsius (for oxygen and hydrogen respectively ) which requires complex technology and materials,” Karnik told The Pioneer.
Indian space engineers have been struggling for the last three decades to develop an indigenous cryogenic engine. The international launch business is a monopoly of countries like USA and France which charge exorbitant rates to put a kilogram of payload into outer space. Since they do not want their monopoly in the launch business to be challenged by other countries, they use all kinds of dirty tricks to sabotage space programmes of countries like India. The international satellite launch business was worth $ 300 billion in the year 1994.
When India was on the verge of perfecting the cryogenic technology in 1995, there was a big furore by name “ISRO spy scandal”. “This controversy took the ISRO programmes back by two decades,” G Madhavan Nair, former ISRO chairman, had told The Pioneer. The spy scam claimed the careers of Nambi Narayanan and Sasi Kumar, ISRO’s two cryogenic technology experts.
“It was the ploy of the USA which resulted in the spy case. By the time the Supreme Court delivered the judgment that it was a cock and bull story, India had lost two decades in developing the cryogenic engine,” said Nambi Narayanan, former director, LPSC, ISRO.
The alarming rate of failure of India’s GSLV missions was a matter of concern for the country’s space scientists. India could graduate into the exclusive Space Club only if it successfully develops the cryogenic technology, a basic requirement for inter-planetary explorations and launching heavy communication and remote sensing satellites.
The advanced weather satellite INSAT 3D, developed by ISRO, was launched on July 26 from European Space Agency’s spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana in South America because ISRO did not have the technology to put into orbit satellites weighing 2060 kg. Most of the communication satellites developed by India were launched from ESA’s launch pad at Kourou.
Radhakrishnan, whose tenure as ISRO chairman is coming to an end on August 31 had lined up all strategies in his armoury to make Monday’s mission a success so that he could get extension of service by another two years. Though the GSAT-14 weighs 1982 kg, its dry mass is 851 kg with the rest being propellant. The satellite has six C-Band and six Ku-Band transponders. Hospitals could set up tele-medicine facilities while universities could launch tele-education facilities with these transponders.
“The transponders in GSAT -14 could be used for satellite telecasting as well as direct to home (DTH) TV services. We are yet to decide on the modalities for allocating the transponders,” said Karnik.
The mood in Satish Dhavan Space Centre is understandably tense because of the past records of the GSLV missions launched from here. The seriousness of the GSLV mission could be understood only when it is compared to the performances of ARIANE 4 and ARIANE 5, the trusted launch vehicles of the ESA. Their success rate is 98 per cent.
Out of the 116 missions launched by Ariane 4 rockets, 113 were successes with just three failures. The vehicle is capable of carrying satellites weighing 4.9 tonnes. Ariane 5, its latest variant, had 69 launches till June 30, 2013. It recorded 65 successes with just four failures.
India has mastered the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle technology, which is used to deploy satellites in Low Earth Orbit. But GSLV and the cryogenic technology has eluded the Indian scientists. The range safety officer of Satish Dhavan Space Centre becomes a cynosure only during the GSLV launches. He is the person authorised to abort the mission by pressing the “red button” in the control panel of the Master Control Room. It is being done to keep the debris of the launch vehicle falling into human habitations. .
Karnik said Monday’s GSLV mission has cost the country `205 crore. The launch vehicle costs `160 crore while the satellite was built at a cost of `40 crore. The success of the mission will be a morale booster for ISRO as the previous two attempts in 2010 to launch satellites with the GSLV ended in consecutive failures. If Ram Mohan Rao, the range safety officer in SDSC is not called in to press the “red button” on Monday, Radhakrishnan could look forward for the order extending his service.
The fact that no insurance companies have come forward to insure the mission is a proof of the project’s reliability. Radhakrishnan and other senior scientists paid obeisance at the famous shrine in Tirupati and offered the deity a replica of the GSLV
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