Indian Space Program: News & Discussion - Sept 2016

[Indranil]

[Indranil]

Details of the ISRO's scramjet experiment

[Indranil]

ISRO 's cryo efforts

[JayS]

Details of the ISRO's scramjet experiment

Brilliant. I am very happy to see the high quality data that too in duplicate that ISRO could gather from the single test, pretty much in line with the typical highly efficient ways of ISRO. This will be used for many years to come for myriads of activities - design, verification, validation of SW and HW both, across the RnD labs and academia in India.

[srinebula]

Details of the ISRO's scramjet experiment

Brilliant. I am very happy to see the high quality data that too in duplicate that ISRO could gather from the single test, pretty much in line with the typical highly efficient ways of ISRO. This will be used for many years to come for myriads of activities - design, verification, validation of SW and HW both, across the RnD labs and academia in India.

Why are the audience so passive; why couldn't they do a standing ovation at the end, not necessarily for the presentation but for such great work on real hard problems.

[SSSalvi]

Close encounters of an 'Old' satellite with the Young 'Bachcha' s.

TSKelso, the gaurdian of Celestrak website had tweeted:

Scary set of 400+ conjunctions this week for PSLV-C37 payloads with COSMOS 1674.

https://twitter.com/TSKelso/status/842922666998751233

Here is my explanation ( posted in other forum ).



Image shows the path of COSMOS ( Light blue ) crossing with the nano-sats launched by PSLV C37 ( Green,Red,Purple etc .. overlapping ) at about 22:13 UT on 22nd March.

Notice how close 'cos' satellite is close to '85' ( which is actually FLOCK 3P-85 satellite ).

In fact it came within about 4 kms in this particular encounter.

In the next about 20 hours 6 nano-sats came within 3.5 to 4.5 kms of 'cos' satellite.

What it simply means is that these close encounters are very likely to result in collision.

[Varoon Shekhar]

SSSalvi, KrishG or SSridhar please de-confirm a very unofficial report, that even the GSLV Mark 2 with "South Asia Satellite" is now going to be delayed to the end of April. It is supposed to go up on April 4th, which itself is a delay from March 31st. Say it isn't so

On the plus side, a PSLV(C-38) with Cartosat 2E and a dozen or more smaller satellites is officially scheduled to be launched on April 15. It looks like three new customers, Australia, Malaysia and Finland will have their satellites on board. And possibly a fourth, Latvia.

[SSSalvi]

Vide news : http://www.andhrajyothy.com/artical?SID=381185

Yes, delayed

[sohamn]

Make this happen Isro, 3 launches in a month, no more delays.

[Rishi Verma]

These SDRE sounding Cartosats are for ahem SDRE cartography (map-making) onlee. It weighs onlee 650kg with 25cm resolution and carries in-orbit focussing and many mirrors for ahem reasons.

Isro has been sending Cartosats up since 2005 and they have yet to print a single map

Isro should consider in-space refueling (using another disposable nano sat) to extend satellite life.

[prasannasimha]

ISRO gears up to flag off Cryogenic Stage on March 27
By S V Krishna Chaitanya | Express News Service | Published: 23rd March 2017 01:43 AM |
Last Updated: 23rd March 2017 08:37 AM | A+A A- |

ISRO successfully launched a record 104 satellites including India's earth observation satellite on-board PSLV-C37/Cartosat2. | PTI File photo for representational purpose | PTI
CHENNAI: The Fully Indigenous cryogenic upper stage (final flight stage) is ready and likely to be flagged off from the ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri, Tirunelveli on March 27 for integration in Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.
Meanwhile the nation is on course to launch the heavy-lift GSLV Mk-III, which is the next generation launch vehicle of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) capable of placing four tonne class satellites in geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

Confirming the development, PV Venkitakrishnan, director, ISRO Propulsion Complex, told the Express that the cryogenic stage was fully integrated with the sub-systems and would be sent to Sriharikota next Monday. Already other two stages -- liquid core stage (L110) and solid strap-on-motors (S200) -- had reached Sriharikota and had been integrated.
Only last month, the cryogenic upper stage, code named C-25 D, passed the long duration endurance test for 640 seconds conducted at the Mahendragiri Propulsion Complex. India is only the sixth nation to have mastered the complex cryogenic technology.

ISRO scientists say they are happy with the progress and the cryo stage has fulfilled all the key parameters like chamber pressure, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen flow, injection pressure temperatures among others.
The cryogenic stage is capable of producing a thrust of 20 tonnes, using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as propellants in the first Indian turbo pump engine developed indigenously. It was conceived, designed, fabricated within ISRO with the external support of Indian industry.
However the launch of GSLV Mk-III was delayed. The ISRO had planned to launch the heavy-lift vehicle carrying GSAT-19, a communication satellite, on April 20, but now the sources said the launch would take place only by May end or June first week.

Reliable sources told the
Express that GSLV Mk-III launch could happen only after the GSLV Mk-II launch. GSLV Mk-II carrying SAARC satellite was scheduled for launch this month end, but ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) was unable to deliver the satellite within the stipulated time because of technical issues. This forced the ISRO to rework on its launch calendar. Now, the SAARC satellite launch is rescheduled for April end.

[Varoon Shekhar]

Not happy, but I$RO knows what it is doing, and the real picture.Have to look at it philosophically. The article is inaccurate when it says the Mark 3 turbo pump is the first one to be produced indigenously. The turbo pumps for Vikas, L-45 strap- on and C12 stage were made in India.Maybe what they mean is designed from first principles. The others were based, directly or indirectly, on French and Russian designs.

[Neela]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 743969.cms

[nam]

Given that we now have the data from the flight test, we can calibrate the hypersonic wind tunnel accordingly. Brilliant stuff.

This should push the DRDO, Brahmos programmes faster as well. We now have a reference, all thanks to ISRO flight test.

Our chance to leapfrog. Break the sixth nation syndrome.

Given that scramjet engine don't have moving parts, we can apply to all sorts of applications. Hypersonic BVRs, ASHM, boost phase BMD interceptor etc. It could be the silver bullet for national defence..

[hanumadu]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 743969.cms

Does this mean we no longer have to import or depend on others for supersonic/hypersonic wind tunnels?

[Gyan]

This wind tunnel is only for hypersonic rockets & missiles or it can be used for subsonic aircraft designs also?

[prasannasimha]

^ No. Hypersonic windtunnels are terribly expensive to power up and run. They will not waste money on subsonic testing. We already have subsonic and transonic wind tunnels. What we don't have is Carlspan like circular windtunnels

[JayS]

Given that we now have the data from the flight test, we can calibrate the hypersonic wind tunnel accordingly. Brilliant stuff.

What do you mean by calibrating hypersonic wind tunnel using flight data??

[Neshant]

<POOF>

Admin note: Please post anything not related with Indian space program in the international thread

[prasannasimha]

Venus mission given a go ahead

[disha]

Details of the ISRO's scramjet experiment

The linked video has been removed. Any copy or gist of what was discussed?

[Neshant]

ISRO is mulling whether to add a rover to what it’s provisionally calling “MOM II”; a final decision may hinge on the outcome of India’s next moon mission early next year, which will debut an Indian rover. If ISRO opts for a rover as part of MOM II, NASA is keen to offer its Electra radio equipment to facilitate communication between India’s rover and mission control, and to improve NASA’s communication with its Mars missions, says Michael M. Watkins, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He says NASA would also be open to working on a scientific instrument for MOM II’s payload if ISRO were interested. ISRO scientists caution, however, that the agency has not yet decided whether to go with a lander and rover, or play it safer with an orbiter carrying a more sophisticated set of scientific payloads than its predecessor. “The next mission has to have the best impact,” Kumar says.

ISRO’s internal discussions on a Venus mission, meanwhile, have just begun. One science objective, agency officials say, could be to study Venus’s carbon dioxide–rich atmosphere to glean insights into the buildup of the greenhouse gas in our planet’s atmosphere. Jacques Blamont, an astrophysicist and former CNES head who is professor emeritus at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, told ScienceInsider that ISRO might wish to equip its orbiter with balloons carrying synthetic imaging radar; these could be launched into the venusian atmosphere to study its properties and measure temperature fluctuations. “Venus is a terribly hot planet and no instrument survives for more than 30 to 60 minutes in its atmosphere, so making use of metallic balloons … is one possibility,” Rao says. That piques U.S. interest. Watkins says NASA “very possibly” may wish to collaborate on the Venus mission.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/ ... -run-venus

[AdityaM]

has there been any update on the MOM mission. what has data revealed till now?

[SKrishna]

<POOF>

Admin Note - Post non-ISRO related news and discussions in international aerospace thread.

[SSSalvi]

Details of the ISRO's scramjet experiment

The linked video has been removed. Any copy or gist of what was discussed?

Was it this video?

https://youtu.be/QeD1av2P9M0

There is one more with some explanation .. but I don't know the authenticity of graphics : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd2YMZ6TfcI

[manish singh]

It took homegrown engineers with no foreign education to give ISRO its first giant leap. [Book excerpt] R Aravamudan, a pioneer of the Indian space programme, describes the ecstatic moment in this personal history.

Finally D-day arrived on August 10, 1979, a good five years after the date that Sarabhai had originally proposed. The SLV-3 was assembled for flight on the pad.

Kalam used to define the very act of bringing the assembled vehicle on to the launch pad as "50 per cent success".

He would go on to assign success percentages to various events, like the take-off, first-stage function, second-stage function and so on till the actual injection into orbit of the satellite. The launch was scheduled for the early morning on August 10, 1979.

And a few minutes after the vehicle took off, it crashed into the Bay of Bengal. Our first attempt at launching a satellite launch vehicle was unsuccessful.

Kalam would often say a noble leader would take the onus of failure on himself and give the credit for success to his subordinates.

And now this was precisely what Dhawan did. He never once blamed Kalam or his team for the failure during the press conferences which followed. The media was not so aggressive in those days.
51hzbngabvl._sx325_b_032717033128.jpg
ISRO: A personal history; R Aravamudan with Gita Aravamudan; HarperCollins Publishers India

But this was a landmark event and they were at the gates of SHAR, clamouring to know what had happened. Dhawan, who was very wary of the press, did not allow them in.

He knew that the success of the mission at this stage was dicey. He also feared that undue publicity would be counterproductive.

We were all very disappointed. Kalam was particularly depressed although he knew, as we all did, that failures were quite common in the rocket business the world over. Dhawan and Brahm Prakash were very supportive.

They urged everyone not to give up and to find out what went wrong and fix it.

On analysis, it was found that the loss of control was due to the failure of the reaction control thruster system – an undetected leak had drained it of the control fluids.

We put our heads down and set to work on another attempt.

Brahm Prakash, who headed VSSC during the years leading to the first attempted launch of SLV-3, retired in 1979.

However, he continued as a member of the Space Commission. The task of seeing the SLV-3 project through and steering VSSC now fell on Vasanth Gowariker.

We had all got used to the gentle and benevolent presence of Brahm Prakash who was almost a father figure both in age and stature.

It took us a little while to restore the momentum of work.

The second SLV-3 launch was scheduled on 18 July 1980, almost a year after the first one.

The payload was Rohini 1, a satellite weighing 40 kg. The mood was very tense this time around and not just because of the launch.

Sanjay Gandhi had died in a plane crash just a month ago even as we were putting the finishing touches to our vehicle.

He had been trying out some acrobatic manoeuvres in his training aircraft.

Delhi was in chaos as Indira Gandhi tried to come to terms with the loss.

In Trivandrum and SHAR this had a trickledown effect, but we were determined to go ahead with our launch.

This time Dhawan had decided to allow Doordarshan to telecast the launch. The press was still not to be allowed inside until after the event. Since Doordarshan was not yet equipped to do a live telecast, some engineers from SAC had come up with an ingenious idea.

They had tethered a huge balloon with a transponder halfway between SHAR and Madras.

Gummidipoondi was the chosen location for the balloon which floated at a height of about 1 km above ground.

A long strong cable secured it firmly to the ground. The distance as the crow flies from SHAR was about 80 km. Experts from TIFR’s balloon facility at Hyderabad had been roped in for this project.

Yash Pal and I were to do the commentary in-house. Gita had also been invited to join us and ask questions from a layperson’s point of view, and so she came with me from Trivandrum for this historic launch.

We had left our small kids with Gita’s parents in Bangalore. They were very excited at the prospect of seeing their parents live on TV.

Bangalore still didn’t have TV coverage in those days and so their grandparents had arranged to watch the launch at the house of a friend who had rigged up an extra-powerful antenna to catch Madras Doordarshan’s telecast.

Everything was ready and the nervousness was palpable. The press at the gates had been baying for information for over three days.

Inside, during one of the meetings, a senior scientist doodled loops and a crash on his notepad and remarked to his neighbour, "As long as the rocket doesn’t take the trajectory of Sanjay Gandhi’s plane, we’ll be fine!"

Yash Pal, Gita and I were rehearsing our questions the previous day when we heard some bad news. The blimp had flown off!

This kind of balloon was usually used in events like carnivals which took place in areas where there was a benign breeze that created just a gentle oscillation.

No one had accounted for the strong winds which roared through Gummidipoondi and wrenched the balloon off its tether.

Nothing could be done about it as the launch was scheduled for the next day, at dawn. We decided to record the commentary and rush it to Madras by road.

The launch had its moment of nail-biting suspense. A few minutes prior to take-off the command was given to detach the umbilical cable from the rocket.

There are two types of umbilical cables connecting the rocket to the ground.

One set comes off automatically during take-off and the other set, which is much heavier, is detached remotely with an electricalcommand.

The remote-controlled cable just refused to come off! For a few minutes no one knew what to do. Obviously the launch could not take place with a stuck cable so we had to call a "Hold".

The vehicle was fully armed and it was quite unsafe for anyone to venture near. The saviour of the day was a technician named Bapiah. He volunteered to climb up the launch tower and manually coax the cable off.

The tower was around 60 ft high, which was about the same height as the rocket. We had no other option but to let him try, with the safety officials turning their backs for a short while.
isro-book-1_6_032717040210.jpg
Aravamudan, APJ Abdul Kalam, HGS Murthy, Ramakrishna Rao and D Easwaradas at NASA's Wallops Launch Station, Virginia. Photo: R Aravamudan

Bapiah quickly climbed the tower and gave the cable a hefty kick – and it mercifully came off! The rest, of course, is history. The flight was a maiden success – a milestone in ISRO’s history.

And so on July 18, 1980, almost 17 years after the first foreign Nike-Apache sounding rocket was launched from TERLS, a made-in-India rocket launched from Indian soil injected an Indian-made satellite into a 300km by 900km orbit.

It was an ecstatic moment. Kalam was hoisted on the shoulders by his colleagues. In Trivandrum we were all welcomed as heroes when we stepped off the plane. My little sons were thrilled.

In their school the SLV had been dubbed the Sea Loving Vehicle. And now their father’s organisation had been vindicated!

The successful SLV-3 flight was a real morale booster to ISRO. India had become the sixth member of the exclusive club of space-faring nations. Decades have passed by since then and this club has not increased in strength!

Two more successful flights followed and the credentials of SLV-3 were firmly established. The payload capability of SLV-3 was not significant. There was no future to it except to provide a learning platform for ISRO.

And that it did in great measure indeed. A spectrum of technologies and concepts had been validated. A sound management system had been established, which could tap into all the available resources in the country.

The areas at ISRO where great strides were made during this time included high-energy solid propellant motors, fibreglass and Kevlar motor cases, precision fabrication including use of 15CDV6 steel cases, control thrusters using bipropellants, control components, avionics systems including inertial platforms, and a host of software used for establishing and operating a launch base.

However, the most important factor was the confidence that the successes imparted – teams began work on building larger launch vehicles and more complex payloads.

Significantly, out of the 1,200 scientists and engineers who worked on the SLV-3 project, hardly a handful had had a foreign education.
slv_032717035327.jpg
At the SLV launch in 1980. Photo: ISRO Archive

Our homegrown engineers were the ones who built our first satellite launch vehicle.

Many years later, during the silver jubilee celebrations of the first successful SLV flight, I heard many of the engineers who had been part of the core development team reminiscing about the early days when the facilities were basic.

Some remembered using mechanical calculators, drafting boards with T-squares and computers which used punch cards. Even propellants were hand-mixed.

As I listened to them, I felt proud that twenty-five years later, most of them were still there, working on advanced launch vehicles.

The fourth SLV-3 flight took off three years later on August 30, 1983.

It was a roaring success. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was our special guest that time, declared she was "thrilled, excited and proud" to witness the launch from Sriharikota.

The successful launch of SLV-3 in 1980 followed by two more in the succeeding years had restored the confidence of the ISRO teams.

Now we needed to increase the payload capacity of SLV-3 to at least 100 to 150 kg if we were to carry out any meaningful experiments in low earth orbit.

The next task was therefore to augment the payload capacity of the vehicle. We decided that the simplest way to do this was to add strap-on motors to the first stage.

In this way we could also try out a technique that could be used later for larger vehicles.

(Excerpted with permission from HarperCollins Publishers India.)

[disha]

Sri Aravamudan's book is a must buy.

https://swarajyamag.com/magazine/r-arav ... space-high

[disha]

Okay., I ordered Sri Aravmudan's book and I recommend that all posters here do order that book. If you do not have money., ask your son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mom-in-law, spouse, brother, step-brother to gift you the book. But buy you must!

The above is a mandatory reading., just like WoF is mandatory reading here.

[SSSalvi]

Finally ...... GSAT9 starts from ISRO satellite Center .. we can now expect GSLV Mark2 flight soon.

http://www.isac.gov.in/flagoff.jsp

[Varoon Shekhar]

^
In your experience, when a satellite is flagged off like that toward Sriharikota, how long is it usually before full integration with the vehicle, assuming no problems with the launcher?

[SSSalvi]

In an earlier GSLV launch after the satellite reached SHAR, ISRO had announced the launch date a week later.

But finally it took off much later due to other problems.

But it appears that 1 week time is sufficient for integration with rocket and launch.

[SSSalvi]

Now the launch is expected on 5th May.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 183328.cms

Should they stress so much on the fact "Pakistan not included"?

except Pakistan which is not a part of the project.

"Pakistan is not included in that. They did not want (to be part of the project) "

[Bheeshma]

What about GSLV-mkIII? That's what jingo's are want to see.

[manish singh]

Okay., I ordered Sri Aravmudan's book and I recommend that all posters here do order that book. If you do not have money., ask your son-in-law, daughter-in-law, mom-in-law, spouse, brother, step-brother to gift you the book. But buy you must!

The above is a mandatory reading., just like WoF is mandatory reading here.

What is WoF?

[disha]

Wings Of Fire - by Avul Pakir Jainulabdin Abdul Kalam.

Order it. Read it. Memorize it.

[Prithwiraj]

Finally ...... GSAT9 starts from ISRO satellite Center .. we can now expect GSLV Mark2 flight soon.

http://www.isac.gov.in/flagoff.jsp

Do we transport such a sensitive and sophisticated space instrument through road transport? Will this not be subjected to possible sabotage or even elements? I am pretty if that is the case all these angles have been thought through. Just curious. I used to think they are air transported

Interesting -- based on a google search
http://www.frontline.in/cover-story/ban ... 275952.ece

[Indranil]

We don't have runways at the assembly center or the flight center, so road mobility is a must. Search for ISRO STS. Don't worry about the security: the satellite vehicle is part of a convoy including vehicles for security.

[prasannasimha]

See the police escort when the satellite leaves. It is a huge convo fully armed on all sides. Road cleared ahead of time.

[arun]

GSLV Mk 2 launch scheduled for May 5th when GSLV 09 will boost GSAT-9 aka South Asia Satellite into Geo Stationary Orbit:

ISRO to launch South Asia Satellite on 5 May, Pakistan not on board

Sadly no mention of a launch date for the GSLV Mk-III aka LVM3 in the article

[SSSalvi]

^
^
A CISF contingent accompanies the .. yes, it is a non-VIP ( ) .. escorted convoy.

Armed CISF gunman sits in the front seat along with the driver.