The Hindu : National : A fantastic teamwork: ISRO Chairman

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 21, 2004

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National

A fantastic teamwork: ISRO Chairman

By T.S. Subramanian

PROUD MOMENT: The ISRO Chairman, G. Madavan Nair, holds a model of the GSLV launch vehicle at a press conference after the launch from the SHAR range at Sriharikota on Monday. The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, T.K.A. Nair (centre), and the Project Director GSLV-F01, G. Ravindranath, are beside him. — Photo: V. Ganesan

SRIHARIKOTA, SEPT. 20. The Indian Space Research Organisation earned a revenue of Rs. 300 crores last year, including a profit of Rs. 30 crores, in selling remote-sensing data and pictures to others, contracting other countries' satellites to fly on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and so on, according to the ISRO Chairman, G. Madhavan Nair. ISRO had a 15 per cent market share in the world for remote-sensing data. It had a contract for launching a satellite called Agile for the European Space Agency by the PSLV next year.

Mr. Nair said the next PSLV flight would be in February 2005 from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and it would put in orbit CARTOSAT-1 for mapping purposes.

He was addressing a press conference here today after the successful launch of the GSLV-FO1 that put the EDUSAT in orbit.

K. Narayana, Director, SDSC, SHAR, said the second launch pad was fully ready for the launch for the PSLV next year. It had to be qualified for integrating the cryogenic stage of the GSLV. The next GSLV flight in 2005 would be from the second launch pad. The state-of the-art second launch pad had been built at a cost of Rs. 350 crores. It is a ``universal'' launch pad in which any kind of vehicle, the PSLV, the current generation of the GSLV, GSLV-mark II and GSLV mark III can be integrated vertically and launched.

The ISRO Chairman said that it was ``fantastic teamwork'' of ISRO engineers and scientists, industries and educational institutions that had contributed to the unalloyed success of the GSLV mission today. It was one of the finest missions that the ISRO has had so far. The performance of the vehicle was excellent. All the stage systems, including the liquid strap-on booster motors, the core first stage powered by solid propellants, the second liquid stage, and the third cryogenic stage powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the on-board computers and so on performed with precision. While the first and second stages of the GSLV-FO1 were made by the ISRO, the upper cryogenic stage was supplied by Russia.

Maturity of vehicle

B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, said the third GSLV success in a row had established the maturity of the vehicle.

R.V. Perumal, Director, Projects, VSSC, said the third GSLV success had demonstrated the basic soundness of the vehicle's design.

G. Ravindranath was the GSLV Mission Director. N. Jayachandran Nair was the Vehicle Director and N. Neelakantan was the Satellite Director.

N. Vedachalam, Director, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), ISRO, said the indigenous cryogenic engine developed at the LPSC, Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu, had been successfully tested several times.

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