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ISRO’s heaviest rocket one step closer to next phase of commercial mission
The ISRO's heaviest rocket last week entered the global commercial launch service market.
The heaviest rocket of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) - Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3) - is one step closer to the next phase of its commercial mission. On Friday, the flight acceptance test for CE-20 cryogenic engine was carried out at the ISRO Propulsion Complex facility of Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. This comes just days after 36 broadband satellites were launched using the LVM-3, ahead of Diwali. This was the first commercial launch for the ISRO rocket.
The CE-20 engine has been earmarked, the ISRO said, for the next phase of the commercial mission with the United Kingdom-based OneWeb when another 36 satellites would be launched.
"Flight acceptance hot test of CE-20 engine is carried out in the High Altitude Test facility of IPRC, Mahendragiri," the space agency highlighted in a tweet with a photo from the site. "The engine is assigned for the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3) mission identified for launching the next 36 nos. of OneWeb India-1 satellites," it further added.
Friday's flight acceptance test was carried out with an aim to "confirm the integrity of the hardware, assessment of subsystems' performance and tune the engine for meeting the mission requirements parameters," the space agency elaborated.
Last week, as LVM-3 entered the global space service industry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the space agency and underlined in a tweet: “LVM3 exemplifies Atmanirbharta (self-reliance) & enhances India’s competitive edge in the global commercial launch service market. (sic)”. The liftoff took place with the largest-ever payload of nearly six tonnes.
ISRO’s commercial arm - the NSIL - has signed two launch service contracts with Network Access Associated Limited, which runs OneWeb, to launch the low earth orbit satellites on board its launch vehicles.
