India Space Indian Space Program

[Nilgiri]

After the hypergolic liquid engine, they have tested solid rockets recently :

This is good, there must be steady permeation to private sector (be it established or startups) to hold more production and even development side...so that India has its versions of SpaceX and over time more legacy corporates too involved. There is huge amount of stuff for example that ISRO simply imports right now that could be done in India with some application/commitment by private sector players.

ISRO can then focus much more intensely to keep doing the spearhead trail-setting and clearing of the path for the rest.

This really should be the model employed as much as possible everywhere going forward for crucial RnD that is at taxpayer expense.

 

[Gautam]

On the occasion of 100th birth anniversary of Dr. Satish Dhawan, an Indian mathematician & aerospace engineer widely regarded as the father of experimental fluid dynamics research in India who later became the 3rd ISRO chief, Skyroot Aerospace has unveiled their semi-cryogenic rocket engine named "Dhawan-1"

It is 100% 3D Printed
Propellants - LNG/LOX or simply Methalox.
It will be used in the upper stage of their Vikram-2 launcher.
Thrust figures aren't available yet. We will probably have ground testing videos out soon.
India's first privately developed rocket engine which runs on Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as fuel. ISRO has 2 Methalox engines in development. Those are much much bigger though. I hope Skyroot get some contracts from ISRO and/or DSA. Private players could use some support.

 

[Gautam]

A senior ISRO official recently gave a presentation on the organisation's future. This is broadly what they are working on this decade :

Work on most of these technologies/goals have begun. Some have made significant progress already. All this is fine but you need powerful launchers for this all to work. Multiple engines are under development right now. These include :

KEROLOX semi-cryogenic engine SCE-200 producing 2.03 MN :

METHALOX cryogenic engine to be clustered to replace the single CE-20 HYDROLOX cryogenic for upper stages :

Electric propulsion for efficient in-orbit maneuvers :

ISRO eventually plans to have this family of launchers by mid 2020s :

From the left, the first 4 are already here. The next 3 are being experimented on. The last 2 are the future launch vehicles. Their fate rests on the SCE-200 engine, this is why the SCE-200 is the most important engine under development.

After the SCE-200 gets off the ground, ISRO plans on making this launcher with it. The semi-cryogenic 1st stage will be recoverable.

Some fan made render of the HLV. The labeling is wrong though, it should be SC90, not C90.

Once the 10 ton to LEO capble HLV is done, work on 30 ton to LEO HLV will begin. After that work on SHLV can begin. ISRO is targeting a 130 ton to LEO launch capacity for the SHLV. It will be used to launch space station modules for establishing permanent presence in space. And ISRO wants both HLVs and SHLV ready by 2030. Very ambitious, I think. But I would absolutely love to see that happen.

 

[Luwian]

I have to admit, I did not expect to see India's space industry having such far development. May Türkiye have the same success.

 

[Cabatli_TR]

This topic in the Indian section is one of the most informative and exciting, so every post should be read. I personally didn't expect India to achieve such giant strides in this field. Thanks to all contributors who shared all this information with us! Congrats for Indian engineers...

 

[Test7]

One of the topic i enjoyed while reading.

 

[Nilgiri]

What do you think @Gautam ?...Was the science arrangement rushed too much in interest of achieving something first politically?:

=============

India’s Mars orbiter completes six years at the red planet, but where is the science?

Hailed as India’s most successful space mission, Mangalyaan has an ugly vacuum of science results.

jatan.space

This September 24 marks six years since ISRO’s Mangalyaan spacecraft entered Mars orbit, making India the first Asian country to do so. What is even more impressive is that Mangalyaan was the country’s first interplanetary mission. Combined with the cost effectiveness for which it is lauded, Mangalyaan is often hailed as India’s most successful space mission. But is it?

(more at link)

=============

I think as India settles down and matures more long term in Space missions, we will over time reduce this need to be 1st at something (at cost of something) and just develop the objectives and requirements far more robustly as the mission drivers.

 

[Gautam]

What do you think @Gautam ?...Was the science arrangement rushed too much in interest of achieving something first politically?:

Politics is important mate. Look at the US and USSR during the cold war space race. Politics drove tech development. Of course there must be nuance & we must ask questions like : How much of it must be driven by politics ? not Why is politics driving this ? Politics is omni-present.

I see a lot of people on twitter target the Modi govt. over it. Target away for all I care, but there again I see no nuance. They will take it to whole new heights as if our entire space program is a lie or something. Just for politics ! And they don't seem to know the difference between putting down a govt. and putting down the country. I had a "debate" with them, that changed noting. I ended up getting frustrated, nothing else.

I think as India settles down and matures more long term in Space missions, we will over time reduce this need to be 1st at something (at cost of something) and just develop the objectives and requirements far more robustly as the mission drivers.

Let me write a long post :

It was stated repeatedly from the onset that the Mangalyaan-1 or the MOM-1 is a technological demonstrator meant to work for just 6 months. Any science is an additional benefit not the primary driver for this mission. The satellite's development was fast-tracked and completed in a record 15 months. The tech demonstrator which meant to work for 6 month has been working for 6 years.

Let's look at what was accomplished :

1. India had no experience in sending satellites beyond the moon. This obviously meant no experience in running a Deep Space Network, orbital scheduling/adjustments, using multiple non-ISRO ground based stations to communicating with the satellite. All of this was accomplished in this mission. Legal agreements were signed between India, US, Australia and Japan (the Quad) for sharing data and access to ground communications stations. NASA's Goldstone and Canberra facilities proved vital for this mission. Its one thing signing agreements, another thing operationalizing them.

2. After the data sharing agreement, JAXA as a reciprocated by inviting ISRO to do radio occultation experiments with the data that was generated by the Japanese Akatsuki mission. Data from Venus is rare, we have no mission there yet. Though there is a Venus mission coming up. Will post about that if you want. The radio occultation experiments eventually lead to the agreement for an upcoming ISRO-JAXA joint lunar exploration mission. Former Japanese PM Abe personally pushed for it, will post more later.

3. The last time I checked the data generated from the Mangalyaan-1 has been cited in 70+ research journals written mostly by Indian, US and Japanese scientists. The data generated also allowed us to plan our next visit to the planet, the Mangalyaan-2 mission. More about that below. Here is a list of scientific publications ISRO put out so far (list is from 2019 & this doesn't include the work of the NASA and JAXA)

https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/mom-list-of-publications-sept2019.pdf

4. The Mangalyaan-1's orbit is highly elliptical which is quiet unique. This allows us to take full disk images of mars unlike any other satellite before. I'll attach a sample, this is the first photo Mangalyaan-1 took upon arrival on the Martian orbit :

There are many other such photos. But the problem is ISRO's data sharing processes are ancient and PR dept. is non-existent. Thus a lot of the data that should be open source is difficult to access. Here is the link for some more good photos :

Pictures from Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft - ISRO

www.isro.gov.in

You can get far more data if you are willing to register onto ISRO's mars data site & wait a few weeks for the administrators to give you access. The whole process is so tedious. NASA is very active on twitter, ISRO's Mangalyann-1 account last posted in 2018, I think. In this age of internet much smaller space organizations have large social media presence. ISRO continues on the regular govt. office way. With the amount of work they do it shouldn't be hard. Yet here we are.


Anyway, let's move on to the Mangalyaan-2. Here is what we know so far :

From Wiki, to be used as a primer :

Mangalyaan-2 ("Mars-craft", from Sanskrit: मंगल mangal, "Mars" and यान yān, "craft, vehicle"), is India's second interplanetary mission planned for launch to Mars by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). As per some reports emerged, the mission was to be an orbiter to Mars proposed for 2024. However, in a recorded interview in October 2019, VSSC director has indicated the inclusion of a lander and rover. The orbiter will use aero-braking to lower its initial apoapsis and enter into an orbit more suitable for observations.

In a podcast recording VSSC director Dr. S. Somanath in October 2019, it was reported the architecture for mission is yet to be finalised and may also have a lander and rover. There has been no timeline announced however.

ISRO's recently released Annual Report 2019-20 says :

RH300 MkII/IAD Technology Demonstration : Realisation of IAD system in Poly-chloroprene coated Kevlar fabric is in progress. Inflation system configuration has been carried out. The flight was targeted by the end of 2019.

IAD stands for Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, otherwise known as Aerodynamic Decelerator Atmospheric-entry Module (ADAM). The system is being designed jointly by VSSC and IIST for deployment off of a Mars orbiter. More about ADAM :

1. ADAM is an atmospheric entry module that delivers safely micro/mini probes/payloads to Martian surface, weighing from minimum 5 kg to 15 kg net weight relevant for small scale researchers and explorers.
2. Conceptualized as a stretched sphere (tear drop shape during its atmospheric entry) and the rear cone separates out during the parachute deployment transforming the module to a sphere.
3. This sphere drops down decelerating, aided with three thrusters to bring down the velocity to near zero value for a safer touchdown.
4. Visco-elastic damping materials serves as shock absorbers to prevent impact load transfer to the payload inside.

Additional details :

1. Outer aeroshell in the shape of a stretched sphere (tear drop shape)
2. Multiple layer of Thermal Protection System (TPS)
3. Visco-elastic shock absorbing layer
4. Decelerator system consisting of parachute and thrusters
5. Concept is analogous to advent of mini-satellites when larger spacecrafts of agencies reign the space arena.
6. Small scale space enthusiasts can enter planetary exploration via such small payload delivery systems
7. Maximum deceleration: 11.5 m/s (3.28 ‘g’)
8. Altitude of maximum deceleration: 20.40 km from surface
9. Velocity at maximum deceleration: 491.93 m/s
10. Maximum dynamic pressure: 880 Pa
11. Drag force at maximum deceleration: 180 N
12. Altitude of maximum heating: 8.20 km from surface
13. Maximum heating rate: 3033 Watt/sqm (lesser than the space capsule recovery experiment heating rate as achieved by ISRO in earth atmosphere)

Here is what it looks like :

Pretty cool huh ? Do you think we could've done this on our first attempt in reaching Mars ? I don't think we could. We didn't know how to use the NASA's DSN & we didn't have our own system either. Now ISRO has facilities almost everywhere around the planet, we are going to get a constellation of data relay satellites(IDRSS satellites). Things are getting better because of the experience we've had with Mangalyaan-1, how would waiting or delaying the project help ?

And what did all that experience cost us ? Just US $73 million. Some Netflix shows have bigger budgets that that. If you can do all that for just $73 million, why wouldn't you do it ?

I am sorry for the long rambling post. Took out my twitter frustration here.

 

[Nilgiri]

Politics is important mate. Look at the US and USSR during the cold war space race. Politics drove tech development. Of course there must be nuance & we must ask questions like : How much of it must be driven by politics ? not Why is politics driving this ? Politics is omni-present.

Yes I agree, I wasn't implying anything negative about this, but something India will transition away from (just like any other country) over a larger period of time as the politics of it become more self-assured etc...and immediate remaining frontiers within easy reach slowly reduce too.

I am sorry for the long rambling post. Took out my twitter frustration here.

Haha, no problem at all, I enjoyed reading the great detail and thought you put into your reply. You are credit to this thread and forum, please do "rant" away whenever you want, everyone else just benefits.

Thank you very much, I will have to come back to it to read it in more leisure and do some follow up for my own interest.

A commendable post indeed.....you also reminded me why I stay off twitter a lot heh (though there is good stuff to be found there too).

 

[Nilgiri]

ISRO to launch its Venus mission in 2025, France to take part: French space agency

ISRO chairman K Sivan and CNES president Jean-Yves Le Gall held talks and reviewed the areas driving cooperation between France and India in space.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: ISRO is scheduled to launch its Venus mission in 2025 and France will participate in it, French space agency CNES said on Wednesday. The VIRAL (Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker) instrument co-developed with the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos and the LATMOS atmospheres, environments and space observations laboratory attached to the French national scientific research centre CNRS has been selected by the ISRO after a request for proposals, it said in a statement.

(more at link)

@Vergennes

 

[Yoyo]

I sat in an Indian space capsule once. It asked me for my credit card number to give me lower interest rates on my MasterCard.

 

[Test7]

From this
View attachment 2482
View attachment 2486
View attachment 2487

To this

View attachment 2484
View attachment 2485


Growth ISRO and Indian missile technology is inspirational.

It's proof that every big thing starts with one small step.

 

[Nilgiri]

ISRO scramjet program update

India’s DRDO Tests Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle

From an old study published in 2015 : DRDO conducted studies on scramjet combustor with alternating wedge shaped strut fuel injector. The tests were conducted at Mach 7 & at 3 different angles of attack ( α = −3°, α = 0°, α = 3° ). The results show that the geometry with negative angle of...

defencehub.live

 

[Gautam]

ISRO to launch its Venus mission in 2025, France to take part: French space agency

ISRO chairman K Sivan and CNES president Jean-Yves Le Gall held talks and reviewed the areas driving cooperation between France and India in space.

economictimes.indiatimes.com

NEW DELHI: ISRO is scheduled to launch its Venus mission in 2025 and France will participate in it, French space agency CNES said on Wednesday. The VIRAL (Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker) instrument co-developed with the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos and the LATMOS atmospheres, environments and space observations laboratory attached to the French national scientific research centre CNRS has been selected by the ISRO after a request for proposals, it said in a statement.

(more at link)

@Vergennes

Oh right.....I was going to post about this. Totally forgot. Looks like the date of launch has been pushed back by 2 years. Previously it was 2023, now its 2025. COVID impact ? This is not good. I hope all missions are not be impacted this way.

Anyway here what we know so far :

As a preparation for this project from 2016 to 2017, ISRO collaborated with JAXA to study the Venus atmosphere using signals from the Akatsuki in a radio occultation experiment.

@Nilgiri remember our convo about politics being everywhere ? Well here it is again :

The Physical Research Laboratory(PRL) is arguably the best theoretical physics research institute in India. It has many top researchers from India & abroad. In 1977 French astrophysicist & the founder of the CNES, Jacques Blamont joined the PRL as a professor. Around that same time an Indian space scientist Udupi Ramachandra Rao joined the PRL too. Blamont & Rao got along really well apparently, while in that institute they went on do many research projects together. Blamont eventually left the PRL, but Rao continued. U. R. Rao eventually became the director of the PRL & the chairman of the ISRO.

In 2012, ISRO & CNES held talks about the development of aero-braking technologies for deployment on Venus. Hearing about this Blamont immediately packed his bags and took a flight to India. With his experience from the French Vega program, he proposed to U. R. Rao to use inflated metallic balloons to help study the Venusian atmosphere.

Just like during the Vega missions, these instrumented balloons could be deployed from an orbiter and take prolonged observations while floating in the relatively mild upper atmosphere of the planet. Rao agreed to consider the proposal to use a balloon probe carrying 10 kilograms payload to study the Venusian atmosphere at 55 km altitude.

But that was not to be. In 2017, U. R. Rao died. Soon after in 2020 Jacques Blamont died too.

Parallel to this there was another development, the Americans began pushing hard to develop the US-India relationship in the high tech sphere. I believe it was former US Secretary of Defence Ashton Carter who once said that the Brahmos isn't just a missile, it is a symbol of collaboration & trust at the highest level of India-Russia relations. For the US-India relations to be at that level we need a champion, we need a Brahmos. With this the Americans began proposing advanced weapons sales etc. But sales alone wont cut it, we need collaboration. This is where projects like ISRO-NASA NISAR comes in. NASA expressed interest to be a part of ISRO's Venus project & the entire US govt. began lobbying to the Indian govt. for it.

I mean the whole US govt., everybody from US trade reps to US state dept . Everybody began pushing for it. The US state dept. pushed for it in a meeting with our MHA. Can you believe that ? WTF does the MHA know about space missions ? Why do you have to lobby to them ? But they did it anyway. Here is one of the recent tweets I found :

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1197608191787491328

Eventually they got their way. Well kind of. The Americans wanted the Venus mission to be a solely US-India mission. Seeing this the Russians began their lobbying to be a part of that mission. But ISRO & CNES had agreements already, do we throw those out ?

Seeing how a proposed space mission is becoming a lobbying battle, Delhi stepped in. In true non-aligned fashion, Delhi ensured everyone got a piece of the pie after keeping the largest piece for itself. The US won the right to send 3 instruments on-board, the Russians got 2, the French got just 1 that too in a joint-venture with the Russians. Hell even the Germans & Swedes got 1 each, they had to do no lobbying for that. They were just at the right place at the right time.

Understandably the French are not happy, they got the smallest share despite being the first one to propose a joint mission. The French were assured this one was in the bag as Prof. Blamont & U. R. Rao were steering it. The sudden death of both these men left a void, giving the Americans an opening. The French govt. were too slow to react.

These slide are from ISRO's presentation at Venus Exploration Analysis Group VEXAG2019 on proposed mission to Venus:

Objectives of the mission:

Indian instruments:

Foreign instruments(except the collaborative ones with Germany & Sweden):

ISRO's contribution to the VEXAG:

A look at the proposed satellite:

Most importantly is the final configuration of the mission is not yet settled. There will be an orbiter yes, but there could be some additional components too.

LLISSE-TD is a technology demonstrator of the NASA's Long-Lived In-situ Solar System Explorer project. It seems NASA has expressed an interest in hitching a ride with us. More on the sensor here :

NASA Wants to Send a Probe to the Hellish Surface of Venus

What's the Sub-Satellite ? So we are still on with the metallic balloon thing that the CNES were suggesting. It is possible that the French are pushing for that, it would be a logical extension of their Vega missions. However the problem is the weight. Too much weight is problematic. Everybody seems to be pinning their hopes on ISRO getting to the Hohmann transfer orbit and then precisely entering the Venus insertion trajectory. In some ways it is easier than the Mars mission.

For Mars mission you need to get to get to Hohmann transfer orbit around the Earth, that needs you launch vehicle to get to 2.9 km/sec speed. Once in that orbit start using gravitational slingshots to increase orbital velocity to around 11.3 km/sec. Then at the precise point fire thrusters to leave Earth and head for Mars. Once you reach Mars, use retro-thrusters to slow down and settle down in an orbit.

For Venus its all the same just getting to Hohmann transfer orbit needs 2.5 km/sec instead of 2.9 km/sec. ISRO could use the GSLV Mk3 instead of the PSLV to get additional payload. One problem though, the launch window is smaller. Miss it and you have to wait for another 8 months.

 

[Nilgiri]

Remembering one of the ISRO legends:

Work of Satish Dhawan at IISc made Tejas jet, missiles, Gaganyaan possible

Satish Dhawan pioneered development of wind tunnels in the country

www.theweek.in

Satish Dhawan pioneered development of wind tunnels in the country

Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan. These three names are arguably the first ones that come to mind for many Indians when they think of pioneers of post-independence scientific research in the country.

Satish Dhawan was the third director of ISRO, serving in the role from 1972 to 1984. His tenure as ISRO chief was a time when the organisation, literally, soared, as an Indian-designed rocket made a successful maiden launch of an indigenous satellite in 1980.

Dhawan’s birth centenary is being celebrated on Friday. Dhawan, who died in 2002, was also the director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru for a record 19 years from 1962.There is a popular anecdote that Satish Dhawan accepted the offer from then prime minister Indira Gandhi to head ISRO on condition that he was allowed to remain head of IISc.

Dhawan, who held a PhD in aeronautics and mathematics from Caltech in the US, became director of the Indian Institute of Science at a remarkably young age of 42. Dhawan oversaw a massive expansion at IISc. When he took charge as director of IISc, there were 11 departments at IISc; by the time he left in 1981, there were 40, according to a post on IISc’s Connect blog.

Dhawan specialised in research into fluid dynamics, the study of the flow of liquids and gases, which has numerous applications in multiple fields.

In addition to Dhawan’s pioneering work as chief of ISRO, he is also credited with creating the first supersonic wind tunnel in India.

S.P. Govinda Raju, a retired IISc scientist, in a research paper, described wind tunnel as a “an aerodynamic test facility. It is mostly used to study flow patterns around bodies and measure aerodynamic forces on them. The bodies (called models) are usually scaled down but geometrically similar versions of bodies of interest like an airplane or an automobile. The results from wind tunnel tests can be 'scaled' to the actual velocity and actual body size using suitable scaling laws.”

Wind tunnels are, in simple terms, test facilities to finetune the design of any aerodynamic body to ensure it works as specified in the real world. It was under Dhawan’s stewardship that the first large-scale ‘open-circuit’ wind tunnel was opened at IISc in 1959. It was inaugurated by the then maharaja of Mysore. In 1973, India’s first hypersonic wind tunnel was opened at IISc, at a time when the country was ramping up development of its first space rockets and missiles.

The open-circuit wind tunnel was used to finetune the design of the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas fighter, long before it made its first flight in 2001. It has also been used to test the design of the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA), the country's first stealth aircraft, which is scheduled to fly around 2025.

In a 2017 article on IISc Connect, V. Surendranath, a senior scientist at IISc, described the work of the open-circuit wind tunnel. He said, “We have tested all sorts of objects: Chimneys, cooling towers, factories, launch vehicles, ships, and of course many aircraft. We have also provided our service to the LCA [Light Combat Aircraft], AMCA [Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft], ship development and other flight configurations."

The country's first hypersonic wind tunnel at IISc was used by DRDO to develop the Agni ballistic missile's design. The hypersonic test facilities at IISc have also been used to validate design of India's hypersonic missile efforts.

In March 2020, New Indian Express reported a new task for the 61-year-old open-circuit wind tunnel at IISc: Testing the design of Gaganyaan, ISRO's maiden manned space mission.

Surendranath told New Indian Express "each phase in the Gaganyaan mission will be tested separately to its maximum safety limit and the operational capability (of the rocket) will be proven”.

As Indians feel pride at the sight of a soaring ISRO rocket or a menacing missile from DRDO, it is only apt to remember the foundations that Satish Dhawan, and his colleagues, laid to make them possible.

 

[Gautam]

ISRO was built to cater to India's massive domestic demands & it currently operates one of the largest satellite constellations in the world:

• INSAT series from the 1980s(24 sats launched, 11 still operational) used for comms, navigations, SAR etc
• GSAT series (20 launched 14 operational) will be replacing the INSAT series
• Cartosat series for military grade optical imaging
• RISAT for military grade radar imaging
• Upcoming GISAT series for early warning against ballistic missile launch
• Upcoming IDRSS series for data relay
• Microsat series for experiments

and many more....

As ISRO expanded in capability there was a demand from with in the org. to explore the international civilian satellite launch market. This was proposed as one of the ways of recovering investments made in space tech. Thus the PSLV was put up to the task. Over the years ISRO has launched hundreds of foreign satellites in a ride share model. The ride share model is simply: the main payload will be ISRO's sat, the other payloads are up to whoever is willing to pay for hitching a ride with us.

It worked well & allowed us to establish a name and brand for ourselves. Sometimes it allowed us to set some records too, like when ISRO launched 104 satellites on a single PSLV rocket. The mission was called PSLV-C37, it broke the previous record of launching 37 satellites by a Russian Dnepr rocket on 19 June 2014.

More on that mission here : https://www.space.com/35709-india-rocket-launches-record-104-satellites.html

But the problems were evident. ISRO as an organisation had many roles, making rockets is just one of them. Private launch companies on the other hand have only one role and can thus remain more focused there. Due to their large size & complex designs, the production rate of the PSLV & GSLV are slow. We don't have an aerospace industry ecosystem as strong as the US for us to crank up production rate. Thus we miss out on a large part of the market. Most foreign sats we launch are small in size, thus using the PSLV & GSLV was perhaps not the most efficient approach.

So a new rocket was planned catering to the small satellite market. Something small/simple that can be produced in quantity and stored for later use. The entire production of the rocket will be handed over to pvt. companies. They have incentive to work faster, companies remain profitable because they work. ISRO has the blessings of Delhi, thus funding is secure with or without work.

To be successful in the newer more nimble international space market you need to provide launch on demand. That is exactly the goal with this new launcher. ISRO named it the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle(SSLV).

What ISRO has to say about the launcher :

Notice the timeline : First launch in early 2020. That didn't happen because of COVID. More on that below.

Configuration of the launcher :

First stage :

Second & Third stage : (Graphite throat ?!?! WTF ?)

Velocity trimming module or the 4th stage :

Flight Environmental levels. If environment levels aren't within manageable limits(as is the case with every large payload launcher), then you would need to do some serious preparations before the launch. This would increase time needed to launch, a crucial factor in small sat market :

Payload capability wrt the inclination & height :

Satellite mounting options :

30 nano-sats can be launched by the SSLV at once, PSLV can do over 4 times that number. This one wont be breaking any records. But that's not the goal anyway.

Look at the turn around time. 15 days !! For comparison the PSLV takes about 1.5 months.

The 1st flight of the SSLV was going to be in early 2020. It was a military experimental payload named Microsat-2A. ISRO says they can do it in the end of 2020, I have my doubts.

The second flight was brought out by an American company named Spaceflight Industries to launch four 56kg Blacksky Global satellites called Global-5/6/9/10.

The first 4 flights of a new launcher are called developmental fights. They are done to establish the reliability of any launcher. Its amazing how we are getting international customers on the second developmental flight. This is why brand image is important. Look at the reliability rate of the PSLV, its over 90%. The brand of ISRO was established by the PSLV. The SSLV is getting the rub off benefits because it was designed by the same org as PSLV.

A new spaceport is under development near Kulasekharapatnam in Tamil Nadu will handle SSLV launches to Sun-synchronous orbit when complete. It should be completed by the end of 2020. That would give us 2 spaceports, the already existent one in Sriharikota(SHAR) and this new one. That way if the SHAR is occupied with Indian national missions, the new one can easily accommodate commercial missions. Also the new port allows us to fly straight and not have to do a "dog leg" maneuver to avoid Sri Lanka, that saves a lot of fuel.

There is a military element to the SSLV. In a conflict if our sats get knocked out, the SSLV would provide us an ability to put in orbit a back up satellite system. Launch on demand capability has utility beyond the commercial domain.

 

[Nilgiri]

(Graphite throat ?!?! WTF ?)

It (graphite and/or C-C throat insert which erodes during operation by only a few % in throat diameter so performance drop is very negligible) is pretty standard for quite some time with HTPB rockets and lot of other solid fuels too.

Actually lot of fundamental papers governing it I remember are from India from the 80s when SLV and Prithvi+Agni program etc was proceeding at pace.

In fact the sounding rockets from late 60s had the first iterations too: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0094576589901367

A longer paper: https://www.inae.in/storage/2018/12...-Propellant-Rockets-by-Dr-Rajaram-Nagappa.pdf

Some specifics from a more recent publication: https://www.ijsr.net/archive/v7i7/ART20183795.pdf

I believe HTPB in rocket conditions burns somewhere in 2000K + range so there is little need to go for expensive (hard to machine) tungsten alloys etc basically (that you need along with veined cooling using propellant etc) when you get to 3000K+ range operating condition when you hit high Isp fuel+LOX etc.

 

[Gautam]

It (graphite and/or C-C throat insert which erodes during operation by only a few % in throat diameter so performance drop is very negligible) is pretty standard for quite some time with HTPB rockets and lot of other solid fuels too.

Actually lot of fundamental papers governing it I remember are from India from the 80s when SLV and Prithvi+Agni program etc was proceeding at pace.

In fact the sounding rockets from late 60s had the first iterations too: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0094576589901367

A longer paper: https://www.inae.in/storage/2018/12...-Propellant-Rockets-by-Dr-Rajaram-Nagappa.pdf

Some specifics from a more recent publication: https://www.ijsr.net/archive/v7i7/ART20183795.pdf

I believe HTPB in rocket conditions burns somewhere in 2000K + range so there is little need to go for expensive (hard to machine) tungsten alloys etc basically (that you need along with veined cooling using propellant etc) when you get to 3000K+ range operating condition when you hit high Isp fuel+LOX etc.

I didn't know of this. Thank you for the papers will read up on them.

 

[Nilgiri]

Looks like they are aiming for a SSLV launch by year end:

ISRO plans to launch new rocket before Dec 2020 » National Chronicle

Chennai :The Indian space agency is working towards launching its new rocket ‘Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)’ before December 2020, said a senior official. He also said necessary tests to check its biggest motor — booster motor fired by solid fuel — will be done in November. “The SSLV...

nationalchronicle.in

Chennai :The Indian space agency is working towards launching its new rocket ‘Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV)’ before December 2020, said a senior official.

He also said necessary tests to check its biggest motor — booster motor fired by solid fuel — will be done in November.

“The SSLV launch will be from the first launch pad at Sriharikota rocket port after the flight of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C49 (PSLV C49). Post PSLV C49’s flight, the launch pad set up has to be reconfigured to suit SSLV,” S. Somanath, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) part of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told IANS.

(more at link)

 

[Gautam]

Images of 2 more 100% 3D printed components of the SCE-200 KERLOX engine. Both are made using Ti-6Al-4V alloy. The components are undergoing separate testing currently. We will probably see a hot fire test in 2021.

Low Pressure Oxidiser Turbine(LPOT) :

Low Pressure Fuel Turbine(LPFT) :

@Nilgiri @Paro

ISRO will do the landing experiment of the RLV in Nov-Dec of 2020 :

India’s Own ‘Space Shuttle’: ISRO Likely To Test Ground Landing Of Its Reusable Launch Vehicle By End Of This Year

The Indian space agency is likely to test its reusable launch vehicle's (RLV) landing on the ground sometime in November or December 2020, said a senior official

swarajyamag.com

The RLV will be lifted up by a Mi-17 helo and released from the height of 4 km, the RLV will land on its own in a military airfield in Chitradurga District deploying its parachute.

After this we will have another Re-entry experiment & an launch experiment using re-usable booster on 1st stage & Scramjet engines on 2nd. The RLV does have bays for carrying payloads :

Recently found two Super Conducting Neobium Cell Cavities being made using Electron Beam Welding for a RRCAT Particle Accelerator. Here is a 650MHz cavity :

And the 9-cell cavity with combined capacity of 1.3GHz :

This is the perplexing piece of hardware. Why do we have it ? The current particle accelerators in the country are decades old. Why are we making new cavities that were never a part of the original design ?

The most powerful accelerator we have today is the "Indus 2" with a Synchrotron power level of 2.5 GeV. There is a new still proposed accelerator
called the International Linear Collider (ILC), which is a collaboration between USA, Europe & Japan, also uses a 1.3 GHz cavity.

The ILC is far more powerful than any present RRCAT accelerator. The ILC will begin operations at 500 GeV, then it will be ramped up to 1 TeV.

So how come we are making the same hardware as them ? The only logical explanation is that we might have a new accelerator under construction. The last one was built 15 years ago, its about time.

When Dr. Kalam was the president he visited Fermilabs in the USA. Where the then director of Fermilabs insisted on India's (in particular RRCAT's) participation in the ILC. That never happened though. RRCAT also participated heavily in CERN's Large Hadron Collider.