LPSC director V Narayanan told Express that the improved engine would give a significant advantage in terms of enhancing payload capability. “Usually, the chamber pressure is 58 bar, but with the use of high-thrust Vikas engine, we will achieve 62 bar, which is a 6% increase in thrust that gives us 70 kgs of additional payload gain in this mission. Right now, we are going to use the high-thrust Vikas engine only in the second stage. Basically, we are validating it. For Chandrayaan-2 mission, we will be using five such engines aiming for a payload gain of around 250 kgs,” Narayanan said.
Snapshots of a Presentation by @isro 's S. Somanath, director of VSSC, from the India side event at this year's Toulouse Space Show. Glimpses of India's future launch vehicles, propulsion, and much more!
All three satellite launch vehicles of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are set to add muscle to their spacecraft lifting power in upcoming missions this year. The space agency has improved the thrust of the Vikas engine that powers all of them. The agency said the high-thrust engine qualified on Sunday after a ground test lasting 195 seconds (over three minutes).
The main beneficiary of the high-thrust Vikas engine is said to be the heavy-lifting GSLV-Mark III launcher, which ISRO expects will now put 4,000-kg satellites to space. This would be the third Mk-III and the first working one to be designated MkIII Mission-1 or M1.
The first MkIII of June 2017 started with a 3,200-kg satellite and the second one is being readied for lifting a 3,500-kg spacecraft. The Vikas engine "will improve the payload capability of PSLV, GSLV and GSLVMk-III launch vehicles," ISRO said. The improvement effort, the second such since December 2001, was conducted at ISRO Propulsion Complex in Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.
S. Somanath, Director, Launch Vehicles Centre, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said the incremental benefit of the upgraded engine should be seen in the PSLV and GSLV missions over the coming months. MkIII-D2, the second test flight of the heavy-lifter, is being assembled. The new engine will be used in the subsequent mission - M1.The Vikas engine is used in the second stage of the light lifting PSLV; the second stage and the four add-on stages of the medium-lift GSLV; and the twin-engine core liquid stage of Mk-III.
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is working on upgrading its heavylifter GSLV Mk III where the upper stage of the rocket will have highly refined form of kerosene as fuel in order to increase its payload capability.Talking to TOI, Isro chairman K Sivan said, "To increase the payload capability of GSLV Mk III from 4 tonnes to 6 tonnes, we are in the process of making some improvements in rocket stages. First, we are working on enhancing the cryogenic stage fuel loading from 25 tonnes to 30 tonnes. Second, we are also working on changing the core stage L110 - which has 110 tonnes of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and dinitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). We want to replace L110 stage with semicryogenic engine that will carry liquefied oxygen and highly refined kerosene called kerolox (aka RP-1) instead of liquefied hydrogen."
Sivan said, "The first test of the advanced version of Mk III will take place in December 2020. With upgrade in Mk III, we will also have to upgrade the launchpad facility at Sriharikota. We have therefore issued a tender notice recently inviting quotations for infrastructure upgrades at the second launchpad."However, the chairman clarified the rocket with the semicryogenic stage won't be used for the Gaganyaan mission. The current GSLV Mk III with L110 stage will only be used for the manned mission with some modifications.The advantage of using kerolox is that it is 10 times dense - meaning the same volume of kerolox will generate more thrust than the same volume of hydrolox. It is also cheaper, more stable at room temperature and less hazardous than hydrolox. Elon Musk-promoted Space X currently uses kerolox in its Falcon 9 rocket for launching heavy payloads.
https://twitter.com/isro/status/1137367360585601024
According to sources with the ISRO, the launch of Chandrayaan 2 moon mission was on Monday aborted due a leak detected with the engine. The scientists have further revealed that it may take upto 10 days to fix the engine leak and that the launch is now likely next month. However, there is no official confirmation on the same.
Is the batteries not being fully charged a related problem to the propellant leak? What could be the reason for that? Batteries do tend to suffer a loss of charge capacity in the cold - could a cryogen leak have caused this? ...
Also, charging of some types of batteries itself produces hydrogen gas.
Could that at all be causing hydrogen gas to be detected as a leak?
So regarding the helium bottle nipple leak that was found:https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=20324.msg1966213#msg1966213What's being said is that the nipple or the fitting it's attached to may have shrunk - perhaps due to proximity to the LOX tankage - and that's what may be causing the leak of the helium pressurant. If that's the case, then can't they just u̶s̶e̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶d̶u̶c̶t̶ ̶t̶a̶p̶e̶ spray some insulation foam on it, to insulate it enough to make do for this particular launch?They can probably redesign later, after the immediate need for this mission is met.
“Now we have to seal and insulate the joint from the cold or shift it away. The second option is tough if we were to work on the engine without dismantling the rocket. Now efforts are on to plug the leak without moving the rocket from the launchpad, so we can launch it sometime early next week,” said a source.
A senior scientist said the Chandrayaan-2 setback has presented some learnings for the indigenous cryogenic engine
CE-20, which was developed after studying Russian cryogenic engines used rigid joint. Isro adopted the rigid joint concept in several places. The rigid joints have lesser chances of leak, but if there is one, they have to be discarded and made again. ISRO doesn't have the luxury to discard and use another engine in short notice.
The Chandrayaan-2 experience may force Isro to make some changes in the cryogenic stage. We may not entirely drop rigid joints, but now we may think of having some add-ons like an ‘S’ loop or a ‘U’ loop that can help deal with such anomalies. This latest setback has been an unexpected learning curve
The problem was resolved without changing any component - just "tightening it worked".
Walchandnagar Industries (WIL) in its BSE filing said it secured an order worth Rs 77.20 crore plus escalation from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre of ISRO located at Thiruvananthapuram.The order is towards manufacturing and supply of head, middle and nozzle end segments (total 30 numbers) for the GSLV M KIII launch vehicle, it added.GK Pillai, Managing Director & CEO said it is company's second largest single order from ISRO and the largest as far as the GSLV-M KIII launch vehicle is concerned.