Monday, January 4, 2010

L110 test to follow S200

L110 cluster engines undergoing testing at LPSC

Full-stage testing of the L110 is to follow the ground firing of S200 later this month. The ground-firing of S200 booster is to take place in the third week of January according to the Chairman of ISRO. This will be followed by the test of the L110 engine in the latter half of January or February at the Liquid Propulsion test facility in Mahendragiri. The Chairman retierated that the first launch of GSLV-Mk III would take place next year.

This test will pave the way for certification of the L110 stage. The L110 is India's first cluster engine stage containing a cluster of 2 Vikas engines similar to those used on the basic GSLV. The cluster engine has already been certified in 2007 and this particular test would be a full-stage test. In many ways, it represents another frontier conquered by the Indian space agency.

The L110 stage generates a thrust of around 1400 kN with a burn time of 240 seconds. The entire stage weighs at 119 tonnes with 9 tins being the empty weight. The stage will ignite 113 seconds after lift-off and burning-out at 312 seconds. The stage is also capable of multiple restarts.

The L110 will in the future be replaced by the common liquid core stage (CLC) powered by the Semi-cryogenic engine under development thus making the GSLV Mk-III more capable and providing a platform to test technologies for the UMLV family.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you for the update.

    Is the cryo engine used for GSLV-II(C15) and GSLV-III(C25) the same except for the increased fuel capacity for the later? Or will there be any other differences?

    So if the C15 stage works in the next launch, can we say that C25 should also work theoritically for GSLV-III.

    Also do you know if the cryo engine that was tested last 2 times will be used in the actual flight or different one?

    Will S200 boosters be jettisoned after burn-out or will they remain fixed to the body as in the case for current GSLV

    Thankyou :)

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  2. 1. The cryogenic engines on GSLV and GSLV-MK III are different except for some minor similarities. The CE-20 engine (Mk-III) uses a gas-generator cycle, and it's for the first time that ISRO is working on gas generator cycle. The CE-7.5 engine (GSLV) is the most basic version of cryogenic engines and it can't be used on Mk-III.

    2. If C15 is successful that doesn't mean C25 will alos be as there are some major differences b/w the two as pointed above.

    3. Indian Cryogenic engines (and the majority of others) are not reusable.

    4. S200 of GSLV Mk-IIIwill be jettisoned soon after then burn out. GSLV (basic version) has it's boosters linked to the first stage so it will have to wait until the first stage burns out.

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  3. Thanks for your response :)

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  4. Hi Krishna,

    Would you be kind enough to share details(If you know) on ISRO's UMLV and how they are different from ISRO's RLV or the current crop of LV's

    Thanks
    Anon

    ReplyDelete