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On Sunday, India joined the select league of “Cryo Club”, a select club of spacefaring of five nations, after successfully launching GSLV-D5, with the crucial cryogenic engine technology. The technology will enable Indian rockets to carry heaviest satellites up into space. Experts says the development, perfecting the technology, is a major milestone when it comes to capability, it is now the question of scalability.
From the business perspective, this will not only save huge foreign exchange, it will also bring more money into India since it has opened a $4 billion global satellite launch services market for Isro.
The technology is a stepping stone for India's ambitions to develop larger launchers to haul heftier payloads to Earth orbit and toward interplanetary destinations.
“The mission will make the country totally self-reliant in all aspects of launch vehicle technology,” said Isro officials. The cryogenic stage is technically a very complex system compared to solid or earth-storable liquid propellant stages/ engine due to the use of propellants at extremely low temperatures and the associated thermal and structural problems.
India is now the sixth country in the world after the US, Russia, Japan, China and France to master this technology. With success of indigenous technology, India now can look at larger pie in the $4 billion global satellite launch services market.
However, veteran space scientist and Former Isro's Chief U R Rao, who had envisioned of India having its own cryogenic technology, says “any programme or development of Isro is not to compete with any country but for our requirement.” The view was also echoed by the present Chairman of Isro K Radhakrishnan.
Rao added, “Isro has mastered the technology, which is an extremely difficult one. It just need to scale it rapidly”. He noted, in the case of PSLV, Isro had done it from less than a tonne, it can now carry upto 2-2.5 tonne successfully. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was carried through PSLV and India is the first country to successfully launch it in the first attempt.
Rao noted, countries like China, which have mastered cryogenic technology are looking at capability of upto nine tonne and trying to build further. Going forward Isro can go for higher capabilities, which it proved from PSLV, which started as less than one tonne and now it can take upto around 2-2.5 tonne.
It may be noted, Isro's highest payload carrier or the advanced version of GSLV-Mark III is being developed and an experimental mission will be in April this year. The rocket will have a passive cryogenic stage/engine. Radhakrishnan said, the cryogenic engine for the next GSLV version will take around three years for being flight ready.
"20 years of efforts in realising the cryogenic engine and the stage has now been fructified. Toiling of 20 years, excruciating efforts of the last three and a half years after we had the first test flight of this cryogenic engine and stage and all the efforts put by the team Isro for the last few years," said Radhakrishan. This shows the maturity of the team, and the leadership given to the team over decades, he added.
The successful launch is also a gentle reminder that denial of technology has failed to work against India.
India started developing GSLV in the early 1990s and was planning to use Russian-built cryogenic engines and technical know-how, however the agreement was cancelled in 1992 after US imposed sanctions on Glavkosmos, the Russian company providing technology to India. The United States feared the transfer of missile technology from the fractured Soviet Union to developing states.
India bought seven ready-made cryogenic engines, of which six were used in earlier GSLV flights. In 1992, India started designing cryogenic engine. The first engine built by India was used in April 2010. But the engine igniter performed for few seconds and seized and rocket clenched into the Sea.
Responding to which Rao, said their is no country, which succeed on the first attempt it took many years for everyone to master the technology and Isro was not exception.
B N Raghunandan, Dean: Faculty of Engineering & Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering at Indian institute of Science said that it is a big milestone in rocket science in which there was almost stagnation for the last two decades.
While the technology complexity seems to have been mastered, the real challenge will be in sustaining the quality control and consistency in launching successful flights like PSLV.
To a question on whether is it right to state India has joined the Cryo Club, he said, definitely we can mention it, as we have now developed the technology and even we have an edge when it goes commercial, thanks to low cost frugal engineering which makes India attractive for other countries to launch satellites using our capabilities.
Nidhi Goyal, Senior Director - Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt Ltd added, the successful launch of indigenous engine is very important in terms of cost advantage and self sufficiency. Engine was one of the major import items which increased the expenditure bill to India in such projects. The cost advantage with the indigenous engine is 25-30 per cent. This was also one of the target set in the outcome budget of Isro in 2012-17.
While it is also mentioned as one of the objective of Isro to earn revenue during the five years, it seems that the technology would be immediately used for own requirement rather than offering service to others.
The challenge is to maintain the quality and perfection. After the first successful launch the agency has to prove that it is consistent with another one or two successful launches.
Saving foreign exchange
GSLV will not only save huge foreign exchange, it will also bring more business for Isro.
On the saving front, the country has been spending around Rs 500 crore as launch fee for sending up a 3.5 tonne communication satellite, noted K Radhakrishnan. Isro had sent 26 satellites using foreign rockets since 1975.
K Sivan, project director, GSLV, said GSLV has been a “naughty boy” till now and has become an “obedient boy” now. S Ramakrishnan, director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, which oversees rocket developments, added "this definitely given us confidence that any technology we will be able to master."
V S Hegde, chairman and managing director at Antrix Corporation, said GSLV will help the Corporation to launch more satellites for other countries. It may be noted, so far 38 satellites were launched by Isro for other countries.
"(After) Flying one more GSLV, we will be in a position to declare the rocket as commercially operational," he added.
It means besides using for internal purpose, soon the GSLV will carry communication satellites for other countries by Isro.
There are niche satellites weighing around two tonnes and over the next 12 months, the next GSLV rocket will be ready for a mission. With one more mission, GSLV will be as reliable as ISRO's other rocket PSLV, said Radhakrishnan.
He added, has lined up several satellite launches for the current GSLV rocket version, which would be carrying satellites GSAT-6, 7A, 9, GISAT and Chandrayaan-2/moon mission. This would also be considered as a step ahead for India's efforts for manned missions to space.
These launches would further augment transponders capacity.
