India's ISRO to launch indigenous cryogenic engine this year

Interesting news item -- wasn't the entire
original price tag of the Shuttle-Mir flights
determined by the amount the Russians CLAIMED
would be lost when they were forced by US diplomats
to cancel a cryo engine deal with India on silly
'proliferation' issues? Somebody in the Clinton
Administration wanted to keep India from being able
to build its own cryogenic engines, presumably
because of their alarming military applications?
The Russian version of the lost contract fees
was about ten times what had actually been
discussed with India, to start the negotiations
at an advantage, and the US side caved for
the entire amount -- then had to expand the
Shuttle-Mir flight program to make it LOOK worth
the full $400 million? Something like that? And now
India has the cryo industry, it's no military threat,
and it turns out the only threat is to US commercial
launch service profits for GEO payloads...
Ain't real space history strange?


http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1007460

ISRO to launch indigenous cryogenic engine this year

PTI

Saturday, January 14, 2006 16:06 IST



MUMBAI: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it will launch
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with a home-grown cryogenic
engine by this year-end.

"Work is in an advanced stage. May be soon we will have a hot test and after
that we will take a decision.Most probably, the launch will take place by
the end of this year," ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters.

The GSLV can send satellites into orbits nearly 36,000 km above the earth
and the indigenous cryogenic engine will boost payload capability from the
present 2,000 kg to 2,500 kg.

The cryogenic engine for the indigenous upper stage of GSLV has been
successfully qualified, Nair said adding the launch will replace the Russian
cryogenic engines that India currently uses for launches.

About GSLV Mk III, Nair said the project was on schedule and the launch will
take place by 2008. GSLV-Mk III will have a capability to launch a
four-tonne satellite into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GOT).

It is a three-stage vehicle with a 110-tonne core liquid propellant stage
and a strap-on stage with two solid propellant motors, each with 200-tonne
propellant. The upper stage will be a cryogenic with a propellant loading of
two tonnes.