Isro to test fire India's heaviest rocket GSLV-Mk III

This comes less than three months after Isro successfully launched Mangalyaan, catapulting India to the elite league of nations who have successfully sent missions to Mars.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will test-fly its heaviest rocket GSLV-Mk III on Thursday at 9:30am from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

GSLV-Mk-III-rocket-Photo-Agencies

This comes less than three months after Isro successfully launched Mangalyaan – a spacecraft orbiting Mars – catapulting India to the elite league of nations who have successfully sent missions to the red planet.

GSLV Mk III is conceived and designed to make India fully self reliant in launching heavier communication satellites of INSAT-4 class, which weigh 4500 to 5000 kg. It would also enhance the capability of the country to be a competitive player in the multimillion dollar commercial launch market.

“It is an experimental mission of GSLV MkIII towards launching heavier satellites,’ Isro chairperson K Radhakrishnan told HT.

It is designed to be a three stage vehicle, with 42.4 m tall with a lift off weight of 630 tonnes.

“This is a suborbital flight, carrying a crew module which will go up to a height of 120 km and then descend,”

Space Applications Centre director Dr Kiran Kumar said: "There will be a crew module as a dummy payload and cryogenic engine for weight simulation. The experimental flight with the crew module in a spacecraft will test whether its heat shield can survive very high temperatures during its re-entry into the atmosphere.”

A few years back Isro had carried out a similar experiment on a smaller scale in which the module had orbited around the earth for 15 days before entering back.