H,'rt;;u-

I r ,4 ';;..0

10,

Why didn't thecryo'genicengine ignite?

T.S. Subramaniam
CHENNAI:
The non-ignition of
the cryogenic engine on
"""')ard the Geo-Synchronous
."atellite Launch Vehicle
(GSLV-D3)led to the failure
of the mission on Thursday
(April 15), the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO)has more or less concluded. "The cryogenic engine has
not ignited, that is for sure.
Why it has not ignited, the
reasons have to befound out,"
said S. Satish, ISRO spokesman, on Friday.
All the telemetry data had
come in by 1 p.m. on Friday
arid the ISRO top-brass was
studying them line by line.
The GSLV-D3is a three-stage
rocket and it was flying with
an indigenous cryogenic en~ gine for the first time.
I 'A cryogenic engine uses

liquidhydrogenat minus 253 A PUZZLE:The GSLV D3, which lifted off wellfrom
degrees Celsius as fuel and
~;quid
oxygen at minus 183 Sriharikota on Thursday, later plunged into the sea
Q,-,egrees tis oxidiser.The vehi- as the indigenous cryogenic engine failer! to ignite.
1

..cle lifted off as planned at

4.27 p.m. and its performance
was normal up to the end of
its second stage till 293 seconas from the lift-off. But the
~:..~bJckd~v~~~pM; probl~nJ,s
wijen the ~ryogeriic upper
~tage should have ignited 304
seconds after the lift-off, and
- itfell into the sea.'
An authoritative former ISo
RO official said: "It is very
clear that the cryogenic engine did not ignite when you
look at the curve [ofthe vehi-

- PHOTO: V. GANESAN

cle's trajectory], everything

Was normal up to. the GS2
[second stage] ~hutdown.
:TA~P:you caJ;ls~~d~ly that
there is no increment in the
vehicle's velocity. The velocity is the same. It started losing its altitude also."
The ISRO r(jcket'i'mgineers
are puzzled why the cryogenic engine did not fire at all. On
April 9, they had repeatedly
told reporters at Sriharikota

that the GSLV-D3 was "the

most reviewed vehicle" because it was flying an indigenous cryogenic engine for the
first time.
A national panel consisting
of former ISRO chairmen,
specialists in cryogenic technology and academicians had
reviewed the vehicle several
times and signalled the goahead. But for these repeated
reviews, the flight would have

(~

taken place in December

2009, they had said.
S
Besides, the indigenous cryogenic engine was testedN
on the ground cumulatively 1
for 7,767 seconds, while it 0
would' fire for only 720 sec- f
onds in flight.
.
\'
Post-flight, ISRO Chair- i!
man K. Radhakrishnan said n
the entire cryogenic stage, in- S
cluding its engine, passed the a
qualification test on November 15,2007 when it fired for b
720 seconds. "In the last ir
three years, we have been S
working on the flight~en- S
gine," he said. But he pointed C
to one big difficulty - the ig- S
nition ofthe cryogenic engine l(
taking place in the vacuum of S
space [which cannot be sim- cc
ulated on the ground].
"The cryogenic engine has I K
to be ignited only in the vacu- sl
urn of the space. It cannot be tr
simulated in vacuum on the g(
ground because of the ex- "\
tremely low temperatures of
the liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen which, when put
on fire, rise to about 3,000
degrees Celsius," Mr. Satish
explained.
S. Ramakrishnan, Director
v
(Projects), Vikram Sarabhai
~
"*'Space Centre, Thiruvanana
thapuram, also noted, "Igni- p
tionin
vacuum of the
cryogeriic engine could be
done only in flight."
..

IIO!

"JUJ' ,II nil

See Editorial
*'"

-..

, .