The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully conducted the much-awaited ‘full endurance test’ of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III’s indigenous cryogenic CE-20 engine at ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC) in Mahendragiri in the district on Thursday.

The CE-20 was ignited and tested for 800 seconds from 5 p.m. to study the performance of the engine though the actual required duration was only 635 seconds.

During the actual flight of the GSLV, the engine will be ignited for only 635 seconds.

Parameters normal

“All major parameters of CE-20 were normal and the test comfortably met all predetermined results,” D. Karthikesan, Director, IPRC, Mahendragiri, who witnessed the test along with his colleagues, told The Hindu on Thursday evening.

An elated Mr. Karthikesan termed the successful conduct of ‘full endurance test’ yet another milestone in developing a bigger and more powerful indigenously built high thrust cryogenic upper stage for the 43-metre-tall GSLV Mk III that would position heavier payloads (satellites weighing about 4,000 kg) in the geostationary orbit.

He said that the subsystems of CE-20 such as injector, thrust chamber, gas generator, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen turbo pumps were tested at the IPRC, known among the ISRO scientists as the ‘Jet Propulsion Laboratory of India’, as every parameter of ISRO’s launch vehicles are tested only here.

A suborbital flight test of GSLV Mk III launcher, with a passive cryogenic third stage, was successfully carried out on December 18, 2014, and was used to test a Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) on a suborbital trajectory.

A morale booster

Since the ISRO has planned to go in for the next launch of GSLV Mk III within next 18 months, the successful ‘full endurance test’ for 800 seconds has come as a morale booster for its scientists at IPRC.

The mission will put in the GSAT-19E communication satellite into orbit.