India's heavy launch rocket passes flight test

India yesterday conducted a successful test of its new GSLV Mk-III X/CARE launch vehicle. The new rocket is a three-stage affair designed to haul 4,000kg payloads to geosynchronous orbit. The first stage offers uses two S200 Large Solid Booster (LSB) with 200 tonnes of solid propellant apiece. Those boosters straddle the …

[Voland's right hand]

Solid boosters on a man-rated vehicle - yuck...

Dunno about man-rating of the launch system. The first stage looks like it passes the tests for a successful ICBM with a global reach in its own right. If it walks like an ICBM, it quacks like an ICBM - it is an ICBM.

It has a suitable payload already as well. Curiouser and curiouser... What's next, China developing SDI? They have shown anti-satellite weapons already so that is not far off...

[phuzz]

Re: Solid boosters on a man-rated vehicle - yuck...

India already have ICBMs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-V) and the only country they're interested in nuking is Pakistan who are right next door.

Anyway, ICBMs make great launchers for all sorts of things! Soyuz is pretty much a direct descendant of the R7, the first ICBM.

[Voland's right hand]

Re: Solid boosters on a man-rated vehicle - yuck...

Quote: " the only country they're interested in nuking".

Are you trying to tell us that the conflict on the chinese border is settled and so is the Tibet situation? I do not think so.

If anything they are for the "other" neighbour... The one that _ALSO_ has nukes, ICBM, submarines, aircraft carriers and a BIGGER GDP.

[Kharkov]

Nobody here but us nitpickers...

Gotta agree with Voland. Solid-fuel rocket? Makes it a bit hard to change your mind once you've pressed the button...

And for further nitpicking points - 10 tonnes (check it on wikipedia) to LEO is 'heavy-lift'? Nope.

Congratulations to India. A home-grown rocket, done well and done, it seems, cheaply. Thumbs up to them and more, more says I.

[Steve Todd]

Re: Nobody here but us nitpickers...

Erm, the shuttle used 2 solid boosters, as does the proposed SLS replacement. Solid boosters are not a new thing in man rated launches.

4,000Kg to geostationary orbit or 10,000Kg to LEO is however only a medium launcher, not a heavy. The SLS will launch up to 130,000Kg to LEO, and the Falcon heavy can manage 53,000Kg.

[Christoph]

Re: Nobody here but us nitpickers...

Yes, the US uses solid boosters to launch people.

No, it's still not a good idea.

[Steve Todd]

Re: Nobody here but us nitpickers...

Like the shuttle these boosters are strapped to a liquid fuelled core. They should be able to detach the boosters in case of problems, or detach the crew module from the rocket. Solid boosters are comparatively cheap and reliable, but they do tend to have high vibration levels which is the main issue when using them in man-rated flight.

[Gearhead]

Re: Nobody here but us nitpickers...

I am not a fan of man rated solid fuel rocket engines BUT, a Launch Abort System makes the system MUCH safer. http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/orion_las_fact_sheet.pdf

[HKmk23]

At last a British funded rocket takes off

How much UK taxpayers money funded this instead helping the millions of India's starving poor? Sorry to sound like sour grapes but it makes me mad to see such a profligate waste of money duplicating other countries achievements just for political purposes.

[AbelSoul]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

By your logic, any country that doesn't spend the entire national money-pot on the "starving poor" should get zero aid money.

Try taking the xenophobe-tinted spex off and looking beyond the end of your nose.

[The last doughnut]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

Also, they may be a lot of poor people in that country but I think its a long time since they starved in large numbers.

[Flugal]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

This should help you understand why it is money VERY well spent on space whilst we still have poverty:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

> but it makes me mad

Ah, is that what it was....

Presumably the Indian givernment has to get your and other Daily Fail readers' approval for any long term programme of technological development to establish their economic future? Or wa sit only the US, and others on its coat tails that could use a space programme for long term econopmic good?

[Trevor_Pott]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

"Or wa sit only the US, and others on its coat tails that could use a space programme for long term econopmic good?"

Wasn't the US basically just using the Nazi space program, having wiped out it's first incarnation and then run away with all it's staff...

[cray74]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

"Wasn't the US basically just using the Nazi space program, having wiped out it's first incarnation and then run away with all it's staff..."

The US's use of the Nazi space program essentially lasted through the 1940s. Some former Nazis stayed in important positions into the 1970s, but they weren't crunching numbers, bending steel, or otherwise doing anything technologically significant other than making speeches for Congress.

The moment US engineers (and, I assume, Rooskie engineers) got ahold of V2 technology, they realized they had a kludge on their hands. The engine of the V2 was crude even in the eyes of novices, who immediately abandoned many of the design features in favor of native-developed injectors, cooling systems, manufacturing techniques, different propellants, and propellant pumps.

[Sir Sham Cad]

Re: At last a British funded rocket takes off

If India starts caning in the space business money the boost to the economy will mean a lot less starving poor. Better that than the same number or more poor who occasionally don't starve because they get given a bag of rice occasionally.

Are you Farage in disguise?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never Mind the Take Off

What happens when 3 indian astronauts accidently land at Luton Airport?

[JaitcH]

I hope Cameron has remembered to send the 2015 ...

Foreign Aid give away. And the other financial freebies.

The Indians will need it for their next rocket.

[AlgernonFlowers4]

Re: I hope Cameron has remembered to send the 2015 ...

Aid to India and South Africa ends in 2015

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9666249/Britains-280-million-aid-to-India-will-be-scrapped.html

To quote:

Existing schemes that have already been agreed will continue until the last of them concludes in 2015, when all UK financial aid to the country will cease.

Officials said Miss Greening was told that the Indian government valued Britain’s “technical assistance” far more than money.

[Anonymous Coward]

cryogenic engine

No mention about passive cryogenic engine in the report