THIRUVANANTHAPURAMS: The Space Commission Chairman Prof h U.R .Rao recently said cryogenic rocket engines were being indigenously developed at the Ligula Propulsion Systems Center (EPSC) at Valiyamala near here
Inaugurating w seminar organized by the Astronautically Society Of India he said development of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for cryogenic engines posed a challenge to the chemical engineers of the Indian Space Research Organization as much attention had not yet been paid to this field.
Another field which required attention by the chemical engineers was development of another propellant called tetra hydrogen a molecular hydrogen with four atoms which gives much energy when excited he said adding tetra hydrogen decayed automatically when excited.
At the moment he said investigating the area of bringing down the cost of propulsion was more important rather than looking to any other kind of space research.
He said 40% of the failures of space missions in the world were due to failure in propulsion whereas the cost of propulsion was nothing less than 45% Another 50% of failures could be timbered to poor workmanship and avionics he added
Later delivering the keynote address the Director of LPSC Dr. A. E. Muthunayagam said though ISRO had decided to buy a few cryogenic engines from Russia we are going ahead with PFE launch vehicles (GSLY)
He said the stage of the cryo upper stage (CUS) was with the Same Specifications und Interface of the one India proposed to acquire from Russia
Article extracted from this publication >> February 11, 1994
