Indian Space Program Discussion

vasu_ray · Post by **vasu_ray** » 18 Jul 2011 08:39

if one were to attach the huge solid boosters meant for the GSLV flight to the PSLV, even if its not optimal, can they lob heavier sats? since waiting for optimal solutions will mean delays

cryogenic stage isn't mandatory if the sats are able use thrusters abroad them for GTO to GSO transfers like they are doing in the current PSLV mission

the economics of sub-optimal solution should be weighed against lost opportunities until cryogenic stage development is complete and the current dire need for transponders

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 18 Jul 2011 09:05

SSridhar wrote:The Long Road Ahead - Editorial in The Hindu

A nice article from Hindu for a change... no self flagellation... no praising China etc... I read through an article from Hindu without cringing after a long time...
Kudos to ISRO for the successful PSLV launch, all the best for the GSLV launch next year...May be we should do more PSLV launches in the meantime to get our transponder count up.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 18 Jul 2011 17:59

Nice article from the Hindu. Really, there are 3 GSLV projects going on simultaneously, the Mark 1, Mark2 and Mark 3. Success should come to one of these vehicles soon. What is the next PSLV launch, of Megatrophique or RISAT-1?

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 18 Jul 2011 18:41

We always improve our systems from whatever we learn: ISRO Chief
Excerpt

You asked about the morale of the organisation. It can be judged from what it provides the country. In the last couple of months, ISRO has produced the PSLV C-16, a world-class Resourcesat-2; GSat-8 and now, the PSLV-C17 and the communications satellite GSat-12. To have three major missions involving four satellites and two launch vehicles in four months from April shows how the organisation has functioned. You have to look at the people, their faces and the organisation.

GSat-6 and 6A are for strategic and societal needs. As for GSat-6, some more work has to be done on it. It should be up sometime in fiscal 2012-13 on the second indigenous GSLV planned from now. (It will come up) about six months after the next GSLV-D5 vehicle that will carry GSat-14 satellite around the second quarter of 2012.

As I have said earlier also, there are about 11 (foreign) satellites in the pipeline with firm requirements given to Antrix for launch [on the PSLV rocket.) People understand what this is about.

An Indo-US aerospace mission led by the US Secretary of State is visiting shortly.

Chandrayaan-1 was a major partnership. Their invitation to ISRO to join the MoonRise mission (NASA's 2016 robotic lunar venture) is a major step.

Now, to the commercial part of it. The four (ISRO) entities were formally removed from the list in early 2011. One has to see the impact of it in terms of supplies coming from there. One can talk about it may be after a year. Several agencies keep discussing with us. These are all exploratory.

Before we take a decision, there is a techno-commercial aspect to be looked at - such as what is advantageous for ISRO and India in the short or long term.

KrishG · Post by **KrishG** » 18 Jul 2011 19:10

Varoon Shekhar wrote:Nice article from the Hindu. Really, there are 3 GSLV projects going on simultaneously, the Mark 1, Mark2 and Mark 3. Success should come to one of these vehicles soon. What is the next PSLV launch, of Megatrophique or RISAT-1?

Mk-1 is history. All future launches of GSLV will be Mk-2. Mk-III is completely different launch vehicle. The next PSLV flight will be to launch Megha-Trophiques.

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 18 Jul 2011 23:30

Sagar G wrote:
Shrinivasan wrote:I would say, BLR Times should have pushed the reporting on Mumbai blasts or any other sad news to the inside pages and report on ISRO's successful launch for half a page with big pictures...
I share your eagerness w.r.t. our scientific strides but please don't go overboard with it that you try and undermine a serious issue.

I am not going overboard, this is a view shared by Dr. Kalam too, see his Wings of Fire, he mentions this prominently with an Israeli example. We rush in to give prominent coverage to these pigs and push of our achievers to the fringes... TOILet and UndieTV are nowadays giving more coverage for Filmi gossip than some serious achievements by our scientists and academics and then there is Cricket, for which the whole nation comes to a standstill!!!
My bone was only with the desire of some people to banish the PSLV news to inside pages... They think that is being cool as it is such a regular occurrence and don't need to give much importance.. tell it to the guys and gals who have toiled on it for months if not years!!! my last rant post on this subject.

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 18 Jul 2011 23:31

shiv wrote:
Shrinivasan wrote: I would say, BLR Times should have pushed the reporting on Mumbai blasts or any other sad news to the inside pages and report on ISRO's successful launch for half a page with big pictures...
What? And relegate Pakistan to the back pages? What will 180 million Pakb@$tards think having toiled for all these years to stay on the front pages? I am beginning to enjoy all these off topic conversations on this thread. Too serious otherwise.

a good one Hakim Sahab... we need your sarcastic humor to brighten up the Monday!!!

prithvi · Post by **prithvi** » 19 Jul 2011 23:39

GSAT-12 reaches its home in a circular geo-synchronous orbit

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 260309.ece

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 20 Jul 2011 03:51

prithvi wrote:GSAT-12 reaches its home in a circular geo-synchronous orbit
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a ... 260309.ece

alignment of the satellite has been achieved quickly, this is a huge improvement, next two launches are very important, RISAT1 would be a game changer in surveillance. Kudos to ISRO.

SSSalvi · Post by **SSSalvi** » 20 Jul 2011 22:35

^^^

Everyday I am trying to generate the graphic of orbit. But the input data has not been updated by ISRO to the public site ( Celestrak ) where latest data for every launched object is available with a daily update.

P.S. (added later )

There seems to be lack of updation from the US govt site Spacetrack from 8th July.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 22 Jul 2011 10:20

GSAT-12 antenna deployed

The antenna of communications satellite GSAT-12 was deployed on Thursday afternoon, to much applause from the Indian Space Research Organisation's Master Control Facility (MCF) at Hassan in Karnataka.

The satellite, launched on July 15, will now reach its final orbital destination, at 83 degrees east and pointing at India, on August 6.

“GSAT-12 is in good health and is on continuous radio-visibility from the MCF,” Dr. Radhakrishnan said at a press conference at the MCF. There was, however, a moment of concern when GSAT-12 sounded an alarm on Thursday morning. “Communication was cut off for a few seconds, but immediate remedial action was taken,” he said. The alarm was caused by radiation. All operations were now going well, he added.

juvva · Post by **juvva** » 23 Jul 2011 07:46

^ What is this radiation?? If it is due to a solar flare, how can it affect just one satellite?

PratikDas · Post by **PratikDas** » 23 Jul 2011 08:09

juvva wrote:^ What is this radiation?? If it is due to a solar flare, how can it affect just one satellite?

It seems like the communications outage happened in the morning but the main antenna was deployed in the afternoon. Until the main antenna is deployed, I understand a low gain omni antenna (stick, not dish) is used. The link with the omni antenna is many times weaker and the probability of outage increase correspondingly.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 23 Jul 2011 08:59

ISRO to focus on domestic needs

At a meeting with reporters at ISRO's Master Control Facility at Hassan on Thursday, Radhakrishnan said there was a significant lag in meeting India's societal and strategic requirements, a situation ISRO expects to correct.

"At the moment, we have a strong need to fill up the gap we have in the domestic market for transponders. That is our first priority. We face a shortage of about 200 transponders, and augmenting them will be the main focus of the space agency rather than looking for business from foreign countries to build satellites," he said.

ISRO has around 150 of its transponders in operation, while 86 transponders are leased from abroad. It expects to have 36 more transponders in operation through its recent launches of GSAT-8 and GSAT-12.

Radhakrishnan said the country was facing a major shortage of transponders, a situation that has forced it to talk to a number of foreign agencies to hire the same.

"We have a few satellites lined up, like the GSAT-7, GSAT-9 and GSAT-11. We are also in the process of leasing some more satellite transponders from foreign operators, and trying to get a few satellites moved into our orbit for a couple of years," he said.

Separately, on the issue of building in its own cryogenic engine, the ISRO chairman said that corrective measures, including the re-design of the critical fuel booster turbo component, had been undertaken. "We need to have ground-testing of the cryogenic engine, with the modified fuel booster turbo component. This has been planned for 2011 itself. We are also preparing the flight stage, which is expected to be ready by March 2012," Radhakrishnan said.

ISRO plans assembling the flight stage on to the GSLV vehicle after a series of ground tests, and expects to conduct the flight testing in the second-quarter of 2012.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 23 Jul 2011 09:37

juvva wrote:^ What is this radiation?? If it is due to a solar flare, how can it affect just one satellite?

If the outage occurs when the satellite has just been put in orbit and maneuvers are being done to operationalize the satellite one will not know until afterwards whether the outage was because of solar flare or because of some other malfunction.

If you talk about these things it gives rise to concern. There is a medical analogy. If you have an operation and go home fit you will not even think about it. But you will also never know if, during the course of your operation, your heart rate had slowed down to a dangerous 20 beats a minute for a few seconds and that it was recognized instantly, treated and recorded as a "routine occurrence", which it could be.

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 23 Jul 2011 12:10

shiv wrote:There is a medical analogy...

Hakim Saahab ka Analogy suuper

juvva · Post by **juvva** » 23 Jul 2011 12:59

PratikDas wrote:
juvva wrote:^ What is this radiation?? If it is due to a solar flare, how can it affect just one satellite?
It seems like the communications outage happened in the morning but the main antenna was deployed in the afternoon. Until the main antenna is deployed, I understand a low gain omni antenna (stick, not dish) is used. The link with the omni antenna is many times weaker and the probability of outage increase correspondingly.

Thanks! This explanation makes sense and is becalming too

SSSalvi · Post by **SSSalvi** » 28 Jul 2011 15:54

GSAT12 Final orbit as seen from above N Pole and from a point nearly above equator.

There are two objects .. GSAT12 in a larger circular orbit and the last stage of PSLV17 which took it to its 17 deg inclined elliptical orbit of 284Kms X 21000Kms.

The last stage continues to revolve around that orbit making some 4 orbits around earth in a day and will remain forever as a space debris/junk.

[/url]

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 29 Jul 2011 01:50

Snags spotted, GSLV Mark III by mid-2012.

Taking lessons from the failure of GSLV F06, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is set to successfully launch the GSLV Mark-III sometime in mid-2012. Former director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSCC) B N Suresh, who recently visited Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, for giving a presentation on "Space transportation system: present scenario and future", said the technical snags that led to the failure of previous mission of GSLV had been identified and they were being improved upon.

Talking to TOI, Suresh said India had improved leaps and bounds in space research and was one among the two countries of the world to have successfully launched more than 10 satellites in a bunch. "Russia is the only other country to have this capability, yet the failure of GSLV in December was a big shock for the scientists and the entire team involved in the process," he said.

Explaining the reasons for failure, he said the primary cause of the failure was "the untimely and inadvertent" snapping of a group of connectors located at the base of the Russian Cryogenic stage. "The premature snapping of these connectors stopped the flow of control commands to the core first stage control electronics, leading to the loss of control and break-up of the vehicle," he said quoting the report of failure analysis team. "Since the main control computer is located just below the pay-load, once the connections were snapped, the vehicle assembly started behaving like body without a brain, receiving no commands at all," he said.

When asked about the cause for this sudden snapping of the connections, Suresh said that jerk and vibrations caused during the first phase could have been the reason. Once again Ranchi came into picture as a special equipment was procured from HEC in July last year. The equipment named shaker' can generate vibratory force up to 25 tonnes. This has been incorporated at the VSSC to expose the launch vehicle to maximum vibrations and test the efficiency of connectors generating an artificial environment of thrust and vibration.

chairman and managing director G K Pillai considers it as a major assignment bagged by the HEC for the ISRO project. "We have already provided the complete base system called support tilting system and a six-axis double column vertical turning and boring machine for manufacturing nozzle of cryogenic launch vehicle liners and sub-assemblies for the GSLV Mark-III project," said Sanjay Singh, assistant officer (public relation), HEC.Suresh said yet another bottleneck that the GSLV F06 suffered with was the lack of testing carried out in conditions that matches space.

"We had conducted a series of tests on the ground because creating a space-like environment means creation of complete vacuum which is a very costly affair involving an investment of around Rs 120 crore," he said. "If things move in the right direction, we are hopeful of launching a successful mission by mid-2012," Suresh said.

Shrinivasan · Post by **Shrinivasan** » 29 Jul 2011 21:55

Vipul wrote:Snags spotted, GSLV Mark III by mid-2012.

"We had conducted a series of tests on the ground because creating a space-like environment means creation of complete vacuum which is a very costly affair involving an investment of around Rs 120 crore," he said. "If things move in the right direction, we are hopeful of launching a successful mission by mid-2012," Suresh said.

Hope & Pray ISRO moves forward and successfully launches a heavy satellite into orbit with its GSLV!!!

nitinr · Post by **nitinr** » 30 Jul 2011 13:16

Vipul wrote:Suresh said yet another bottleneck that the GSLV F06 suffered with was the lack of testing carried out in conditions that matches space.

"We had conducted a series of tests on the ground because creating a space-like environment means creation of complete vacuum which is a very costly affair involving an investment of around Rs 120 crore," he said. "If things move in the right direction, we are hopeful of launching a successful mission by mid-2012," Suresh said.

Is 120 crore such a huge amount that govt. cannot provide it?
We spend and waste much more in other non priority areas. And this facility / investemnt is going to pay for itself with the number of successful launches that happen with this testing.
Why are we penny wise and pound foolish???

Henrik · Post by **Henrik** » 30 Jul 2011 13:49

SSSalvi wrote:GSAT12 Final orbit as seen from above N Pole and from a point nearly above equator.

There are two objects .. GSAT12 in a larger circular orbit and the last stage of PSLV17 which took it to its 17 deg inclined elliptical orbit of 284Kms X 21000Kms.

The last stage continues to revolve around that orbit making some 4 orbits around earth in a day and will remain forever as a space debris/junk.

[/url]

Eventually the last stage will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, but it might take some time. Why the relatively high perigee for the last stage? Nowadays you can make the perigee so low for the debris that they burn up in a decade or so.

geeth · Post by **geeth** » 30 Jul 2011 13:58

>>>Is 120 crore such a huge amount that govt. cannot provide it?

Not at all, if you think the two GSLVs along with their payloads blown by ISRO had cost the nation much more than that..Honestly, I was thinking that the expenditure would be more than 1000 crores. 120 crores is peanuts even by Indian standards, if you look at the importance of such national facilities..

Shows there is a lack of vision and long term planning. Still worse, may be the babus decided to part with the money when there could be no more chai-biscuit sessions on the issue.

disha · Post by **disha** » 31 Jul 2011 21:51

^^ If there is such a lack of vision and planning, how come we have a very successful space program? Unless of course if two GSLVs "blown up by ISRO" is the only yardstick for success or failure or vision or lack thereof.

There are times when it is difficult to convince the need of a particular facility because of conflicting priorities and resource crunch (ISRO's overall budget is shoestring) and once a particular issue happens, the need for the facility takes priority.

nitinr · Post by **nitinr** » 31 Jul 2011 23:01

Disha,
It was in reposnse to lack of testing because facility was not there to do such kind of tests.
And it was against the GoI and not ISRO as such. ISRO at all if blamed should be, if they had not brought up this issue of testing facility before in front of GoI.

VenkataS · Post by **VenkataS** » 31 Jul 2011 23:05

The issue has already happened with the failure of gslv f06. Why isn't 120 crore not being invested now to create such a valuable test facility which will pay for itself in the future by preventing future failures. 120 Crores is about 3% of annual isro budget now.

karan_mc · Post by **karan_mc** » 01 Aug 2011 09:13

Soon, India to have its own space shuttle

disha · Post by **disha** » 01 Aug 2011 10:12

VenkataS wrote:The issue has already happened with the failure of gslv f06. Why isn't 120 crore not being invested now to create such a valuable test facility which will pay for itself in the future by preventing future failures. 120 Crores is about 3% of annual isro budget now.

Thanks for pointing it out. 3% is actually a lot of budget, again it should be taken in the context of budget for R&D only (take out salaries and costs for personnel etc) and there it might be even higher (maybe 6-9%).

Now as a thought experiment (a little contrived), can you just spend 5% of your annual salary on maintaining your car (or motor bike)? You know that maintenance is important, maybe you will try different ways to maintain it first and then if it fails you will come back as lesson learnt and see that is the only way (spending 5%) and then go for it. You will chalk it down to life experience and maybe tell your nephew/niece on how maintenance is important (assuming they listen). Also this will give you the option to think through the steps for the maintenance and how it can be expanded to include your truck or SHQs car or scooty.

In the above, replace maintanence with testing and you may get a bead on the internal thought process of ISRO, which unfortunately does not have the independence to take individualistic decisions. Also what makes us think that the GSLV failure results in no learning at all? To me the GSLV Mk1 and Mk2 are stepping stones (albiet very large) to GSLV Mk3. That is the ISRO's ultimate goal. Something like what ASLV was for PSLV. In fact ISRO was criticized for starting considerable work on PSLV before making ASLV successful. When the ASLV which was witnessed by Rajiv Gandhi failed, poor Prof. U. R. Rao (with due respects) "croaked" that the closed loop guidance system worked and none of the journos were interested in hearing that. The significance of that technology (which require a host of other technologies) is seen when PSLV has very precise satellite injection capabilities.

So yes there is angst where an expenditure of 120 Cr (peanuts) if spent would have saved maybe 10x more., but then if space was not high risk even Lalu would be launching rockets.

geeth · Post by **geeth** » 01 Aug 2011 10:15

^^ If there is such a lack of vision and planning, how come we have a very successful space program?

"Very Successful space programme" may be your opinion. Not everybody need to agree to it.

PratikDas · Post by **PratikDas** » 01 Aug 2011 10:23

karan_mc wrote:

Soon, India to have its own space shuttle

Karan ji, the article talks about a reusable satellite launch vehicle. It doesn't need to be man-rated to launch satellites, so it won't be pressurised and therefore won't carry the additional weight necessary for a pressurised vehicle. I think that's how it's going to make financial sense and that's how it is NOT like the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle was phased out in the US because it was expensive and there are plenty of designs which take the US back to the basics to make a simpler/cheaper satellite launcher/transporter.

The ISRO has the benefit of hindsight here and it is good to see them taking advantage of it.

Although I'm grateful that you brought the picture to our attention because I hadn't noticed it before, a Google search for RLV-TD yields this article in The Hindu from 1/04/2009 with the same image: An Indian space shuttle takes shape

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 01 Aug 2011 12:59

Is ISRO still pursuing Two Stage To Orbit launch vehical ?

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 01 Aug 2011 13:00

NDTV: Soon, India to have its own space shuttle

PratikDas · Post by **PratikDas** » 01 Aug 2011 14:14

nukavarapu wrote:^^^ The economics come from Re-usability compared to existing launchers which are completely expendable. Sometime back I read an article that ISRO is trying to prove this concept for 100 launches before discarding it. The modules to pressurize the cabin will be replaced by equipment to generate oxygen from atmosphere and store it. I guess it will end up being heavier than similar sized expendable system.

Excellent... thanks for the correction!

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 01 Aug 2011 14:38

The Resuable Program of ISRO looks like US X-34 program and not a human rated space flight program to me for now.

Hiten · Post by **Hiten** » 01 Aug 2011 22:08

Austin wrote:Is ISRO still pursuing Two Stage To Orbit launch vehical ?

the pic shown here is that of the TSTO

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/308484/misc/201 ... tle-07.jpg

the air-breathing single stage to orbit vehicle is scheduled for a 2025 launch i think

the NDTV report about the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n0uWyEJjjY

Added, from ISRO's site

Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD)

As a first step towards realizing a Two Stage To Orbit (TSTO) fully re-usable launch vehicle, a series of technology demonstration missions have been conceived. For this purpose a Winged Reusable Launch Vehicle technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) has been configured. The RLV-TD will act as a flying test bed to evaluate various technologies viz., hypersonic flight, autonomous landing, powered cruise flight and hypersonic flight using air breathing propulsion. First in the series of demonstration trials is the hypersonic flight experiment (HEX).

http://isro.gov.in/scripts/futureprogra ... x#Reusable

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 02 Aug 2011 12:28

Thanks Hiten , It seems to be TSTO/RLV can be used to launch payload at LEO but are not really useful for GEO or SSO.

Varoon Shekhar · Post by **Varoon Shekhar** » 02 Aug 2011 17:43

When they say 'soon', do they mean some kind of test flight of a prototype, is about to take place in the next few months?

saje · Post by **saje** » 02 Aug 2011 19:12

PratikDas wrote:
karan_mc wrote:

Am I the only one who feels that the tails and wings of this craft look similar to the Mig-25?! Seems like our IAF foxbats did more for ISRO than just photographing eclipses.

Hiten · Post by **Hiten** » 03 Aug 2011 18:24

x-posting from the mil multimedia thread

SRE being taken out of the waters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGSBOvTnmIU

PSLV-C6 mission
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJGOsSAyxYU

Dr. B.N Suresh, the former Director at VSSC had spoken about the RLV programme among others. His presenetation slides can be accessed here
http://www.ias.ac.in/meetings/annmeet/7 ... uresh.html

put together those slides that referred to the RLV portions in a single page
http://www.aame.in/2011/08/india-space- ... aunch.html

Austin Sir, this slide says the TSTO should be able to put a 10T to GTO
http://lh5.ggpht.com/-16Kl3t9nWQ4/TjhaN ... 25255D.jpg

arunsrinivasan · Post by **arunsrinivasan** » 03 Aug 2011 18:32

@Hiten
Thanks for this. That presentation from Dr. Suresh is from 2007, unless am mistaken. Is there any update on developments after that?