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Isro’s new GSLV Mk III rocket places GSAT-19 communication satellite in orbit
- happy-go-lucky 9y agoMore about the launch vehicle: http://isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii http://isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii
- greglindahl 9y agoThe current title here "ISRO places communication satellite in orbit" buries the lede -- the big deal is this new launch vehicle, which has 2X the payload of India's GSLV mark II.
- sctb 9y agoThanks, we've updated the title (which was likely edited for space) to include this.
- happy-go-lucky 9y agoI agree, it's a three-stage heavy lift launch vehicle with a mass of 640 tonnes.
- manojlds 9y agoThe title says nothing, especially given ISRO's track record. The big news is about the launch vehicle - GSLV Mk III - the most powerful rocket from ISRO.
- v33ra 9y agoand the one that has potential to take an Indian to the moon.
- bewaretheirs 9y agoWith capacity of 10 tons to LEO, 4 tons to GTO, it's somewhere between the Titan II (used for Gemini) and Titan III. Would have to be a pretty lean moon mission.
- danielvf 9y agoWouldn't be a manned mission, but that's plenty enough for a small rover mission.
- InclinedPlane 9y agoOnly for a direct ascent architecture. There are lots of Earth orbit assembly missions that would be possible and not terribly expensive to pull off (at least for a lunar flyby style mission).
- Symmetry 9y agoDoubling the payload to orbit to 10 metric tons and reducing the use of hydrozine to one stage are both big improvements.
- jgrahamc 9y agoSome really nice photos of this on the ISRO site: http://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-d1-gsat-19-mission/gslv-mk-iii-d1-gsat-19-mission-gallery http://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-d1-gsat-19-mission/gslv-m... Also the launch video is amazing. The moment the engines ignite the whole thing is moving most likely because those are solid rocket boosters and there's no throttle up time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg
- happy-go-lucky 9y ago> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg The lift-off start position is at 3:45.
- jpeg_hero 9y agoProps to them for having old school, Apollo-style consoles in the mission control room. You loose something when you have youngsters with a bunch of Dell monitors like spaceX. I've seen twitch on the second monitor in spacex control room.
- ceejayoz 9y ago> You loose something when you have youngsters with a bunch of Dell monitors like spaceX. What, exactly, do you lose?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoVaguely worded nostalgia
- slackingoff2017 9y agozing
- crazystar 9y agoYeah, imagine what they could do if they had dell monitors. I bet spacex wouldn't stand a chance.
- rajathagasthya 9y agoThis is a big deal for ISRO when it becomes operational. In terms of launching its own heavy communication satellites, it doesn't have to rely on the Ariane. I can see a lot of customers queuing up to Antrix to launch commercial satellites. One can hope it eats into SpaceX's lunch in the near future.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe last 2 Indian satellites launched on Ariane V fit on this new rocket (~3.2 metric tons), but, that's a medium-sized satellite. Ariane V usually launches pairs of satellites, one ~ 3mt and one ~ 6mt. As for price, surfing the Internets I see Rs 350 to Rs400 crore as a price, which ~ $56-$64 million dollars. SpaceX's price for a "flight proven" GTO launch is supposedly $62 million less 10%, or about the same.
- rajathagasthya 9y agoGSLV MK3 is a crucial enabling technology for future applications for ISRO. They plan to human certify it. But most importantly, it's planned to evolve into new family of launch vehicles called Unified Launch Vehicle (ULV). A new SCE-200 semi-cryogenic engine which is under development and other upgrades could enhance the payload capacity to 6 metric tons. So the ULV will eventually replace PSLV and the GSLV MK2. As for pricing, I definitely agree SpaceX has the edge especially with their reusable rockets. But one can still hope ISRO catches up :)
- superasn 9y agoHere is the full launch video: https://youtu.be/ae6LVG0j1Pg?t=202 https://youtu.be/ae6LVG0j1Pg?t=202
- alphadog_78 9y agoCongratulations ISRO.. Good step in right direction. If we compare this to current SpaceX Falcon 9 (not Falcon Heavy ) http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 Falcon 9 can deliver 8300 Kg to GTO and 22,800kg to LEO. GSLV MK III delivers 4000 Kg to GTO and 8000KG to LEO ( http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii ) Mr. Musk will be delivering hell lot of stuff to space with his reusable rockets. SO, he will be very cost competitive to ISRO w.r.t launch price.
- happy-go-lucky 9y ago> http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 http://www.spacex.com/falcon9 According to the technical overview, Falcon 9 can also deliver 4020 kg to Mars :)
- greglindahl 9y agoTo put that into perspective, India's last Mars satellite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission weighed 1.3 metric tons, and was launched on PSLV-XL.
- happy-go-lucky 9y agoThanks for the wiki. ISRO has been consistently performing well. They can be a role model for other government agencies in India.
- flerchin 9y agoThe ISRO is pegging the price at Rs 400 Cr which is almost identical to a Falcon 9 at $62M at current exchange rates. Falcon 9 appears to win on price/payload, but ISRO is in the ballpark, impressive.
- tankenmate 9y agoExcept ISRO's margin can't be as good on the materials (although it's probably better on the staff costs). Th F9 FT has a take off mass of 549 metric tons and can put just under 23 metric tons into LEO, the GSLV-III has a mass of 640 metric tons and can put 10 metric tons into LEO. The combined propellent mass for the F9FT is approx 508 metric tons, the GSLV-III is 554 metric tons. So the non propellent mass for the F9FT is 41 metric tons, and the GSLV-III is 86 metric tons. What's more I'm fairly certain that the solid booster propellent costs more per ton, they are much much simpler to manufacture than liquid fuelled engines. F9 however is reusable and is almost completely assembled if not manufactured in house. So I strongly suspect that SpaceX's margins are much better than ISRO's and that the development costs have been viewed as sunk cost by the Indian government. Still it is a huge (100% plus) leap for ISRO; I'm sure as they launch more as well as more often their costs and mass fractions will improve.
- swatkat 9y agoThis is an important milestone for ISRO. This launch successfully validated ISRO's homegrown CE-20[1] gas generator cycle cryogenic engine. With this, ISRO has mastered both staged combustion (CE-7.5[2]) and gas generator cycle cryogenic engine technologies. Next up is SCE-200 RP-LOX engine[3]! There is a plan to swap GSLV Mk III's L110 hyperglic stage with SCE-200 stage, which should considerably boost payload capacity. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-20 [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5 [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200
- swatkat 9y agoOnboard camera videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6S8iBtIJDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6S8iBtIJDY
- swatkat 9y agoGSAT-19 satellite also has electrical propulsion system[1] along with the regular hypergolic motors. ISRO is validating their Hall effect electrical propulsion systems for north-south station keeping[2]. Going forward, electrical propulsion systems will greatly reduce the amount of fuel that need to be carried in satellite. [1] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to-avoid-foreign-rockets-to-launch-communication-satellites-isro-chief-as-kiran-kumar/articleshow/59003892.cms http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to-av... [2] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33770.0 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33770.0
- filereaper 9y agoGreat Post on Quora by a ISRO engineer on the significance of GSLV to ISRO: https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-GSLV-MK-III-mean-to-ISRO-and-India https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-GSLV-MK-III-mean-to-ISRO...
- dis-sys 9y agoDid I miss something here? The rocket is nicknamed "fatboy" and it is indeed fat. I was having the impression that india finally made a rocket comparable to Falcon Heavy, Ariane 5, Delta IV Heavy and CZ-5. When I checked its specs, well, 8,000kg to LEO and 4,000kg to GTO, seriously? Not trying to discount its symbolic importance to india, but technically, why its so fat when the payload capacity is so limited?
- Symmetry 9y agoThe Falcon 9 is long and thin, this one is short and stout, and they weight about the same amount. The payload isn't nearly as good as the current Falcon 9 revision but it's about the same as the Falcon 9 v1.0 from way back in 2010 and most rockets of similar. The payload to mass isn't great compared to other rockets but most of the gross mass is in the solid boosters so you shouldn't expect the price to be very high for the mass to orbit.
- dis-sys 9y agoUsing wikipedia data, Falcon 9 has 20% less weight when it is in the reusable mode, at the same time its LEO/GTO payload capacity is better. I don't think those two are on the same level, Falcon 9 is THE state of the art while GSLV MKIII is just a highly inefficient rocket with some pretty poor specs.