Indian Military

India’s existing Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rockets can ferry a 2,000kg- class satellite towards a geostationary orbit 37,000km above Earth. The GSLV-Mk3 is expected to carry a 4,000kg-class satellite towards a geostationary orbit.

The GSLV-Mk3 can also carry a 10,000kg payload into a low-earth orbit — an altitude of about 200km — and is thus viewed as a crucial technology that Isro will need to develop in its bid to launch manned space capsules.

“The ground test on Friday evening was stopped after engineers detected an unanticipated deviation in one of the parameters being observed during the firing,” an Isro official told The Telegraph.

While the rocket fires in the static mode, engineers keep track of more than 500 parameters, such as temperatures at various points in the rocket, liquid flow rates and pressure levels, the official said.

The next static ground test will be conducted after analysis of this data, Isro said.

The liquid-fuelled stage has 110 tonnes of propellant and is similar to the liquid stages used in Isro’s existing GSLV rockets — only with a greater capacity. In the existing GSLV, it burns for 150 seconds; the GSLV-Mk3 will demand 200 seconds of firing.

The test was aborted after some “minor leakage in the command system”, PTI reported, quoting Isro sources. It is a “very minor problem” in which a small leak in the command line was detected by a computer, which automatically stopped the test. “There is absolutely no problem with the engine,” a source said.

Earlier this year, Isro had successfully conducted ground tests of solid strap-on stages of the rocket.

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