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Sunday, November 18, 2007

India's Cryotech!!! Really India's!!???


(For full resolution photo click here)


Almost everybody has been lauding about India's successful testing of "Indigenous" cryogenic engine for full flight duration of 720 seconds on November 15, 2007 for upper stage of India's GSLV. Ground test for 480 seconds was conducted in August 2007.


ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair while delivering the thirty-second foundation day lecture on `Space Technology Development - Management Perspective' at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore said that "we have completed the qualification of indigenous cryogenic engine. It is as good as Russian one."


Now, does that mean it is almost as good as the one we got it from Russia or we have made a engine comparable to Russian one is anybody's good guess. Vijainder K thakur claims that the Indian cryogenic engine is none other than Russian oxygen/hydrogen liquid-propellant rocket engine KVD-1. It is the only one of its kind in the world. The reasoning & the references given by V K thakur are found to be quite credible. (he has also listed references at the end of the article) The article mentions that India had entered into $120 million contract for supply of 2 KVD-1 cryogenic engines & complete transfer of technology with the Glavkosmos. In 1993 US forced Russia to cancel that contract citing violation of MTCR(Misssile Technology Control Regime). Glavkosmos renegotiated the contract to exclude transfer of technology and the sanctions were lifted by US. later ISRO exuded confidence of bulding own engines but faltered in its development. The development is in process since 1986. In december 2001 we renegotiated the contract & further development of launch was collaborated, that also meant that Russia will also help in development of current technoogy.


There are some other aspects which tells us that the engine is definitely indigenous but not exactly true to its term. The Engine developed may be indigenously but the tech has not been sold to us by the Russians rather stolen by us from Russian Cryogenic engines supplied to us for our own GSLV launchings.


You would recall that India entered into contract with Russia for supply 5 cryogenic engines for launches og GSLV in December 2001. Except for the failure of the launch of GSLV F02 in July 2006, all the other launches were fairly successful. The official reason for failure of F02 launch was said to be faulty regulator in one of the Four strap on boosters to the launch vehicle. My wild guess was that the ISRO is not so naive to make a mistake in strap on booster. Rather the failure was because of the Faulty Cryogenic engine fitted in the launch vehicle. The original engine was used by India to copy the tech involved in it. Nowhere did anybody discuss about what happened to the cryo part of launch vehicle. By placing the blame on the strap-on booster, gaze of all was shifted away from cryo part. The realty must be that cryo engine was used by Indian scientists to develop our so called very own engine.


Vijainder Thakur is correct in assessing that ISRO has not told the complete truth. India has really been facing lt of hassles in developing critical technologies. rather they be for MBT Arjun, missiles under IGMDP (Integrated Missile Development Programme), Ummaned Arial Vehicles or Bullet Proof vests for Armed forces. All have seen major failures. None of the above said programmes have had successes to the considerable levels.


The real test of Cryogenic engine does lie in testing but successful launching of GSLV having indigenous engine.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The cryo does not kick off until the later stage. FY02 failed way before that. You moron!

Unknown said...

My Dear,

This still strengthens my argument that real Cryo engine was not used in that flight but an excuse to divert the actual cryo engine for our own research...

(i.e to copy the tech)

Anonymous said...

Another desh drohi. Your citizenship should be revoked and you should shipped off to some dark dingy corner in some shithole of a country like pakistan. I hate naysayers like you who contribute nothing but enjoy bashing any indian progress. What happened, you weren't cut for ISRO and so it is the case of the fox and the "sour" grapes?

Anonymous said...

you r dumbo............foolish person...............i dont know from where thakur got the info but how can you be so sure that india stole the tech...........nd one more thing i truly believe that india itself developed it........bcoz indians got the talent........nd u see in future india will do more wonders........just sit nd watch Mr.DUMBO......HAHAHAHA.....

Anonymous said...

ND IF U COULD DONT DELETE MY COMMENT ND SHOW IT ON UR BLOG

Unknown said...

Dear Anonymous:

the key thing is how you interpret things..

I have nowhere claimed that ISRO is incompetent or has no achievements to show.

That also does not mean all the achievements declared by us are ours.

You people do not understand the diplomacy.
The tech, which takes long time to develop, should be acquired (by whatever means).

I am just publishing my analysis. whether you want to accept it or not, is your prerogative.

Anonymous said...

You see to be a die hard ISRO or indigenous basher !!

On your statement that "By placing the blame on the strap-on booster, gaze of all was shifted away from cryo part." , please go through http://www.isro.org/pressrelease/scripts/pressreleasein.aspx?Sep06_2006 and as Anon at 'October 08, 2008 1:54:00 AM" said it happened at a very early stage.

And as you have mentioned yes your "wild guess" is indeed "wild and Exuberant"

Sam Princeton said...

Indian cryo industry is developing fast and has a very bright future ahead.

Anonymous said...

"You people do not understand the diplomacy."... What makes you think you know better?

A simple point to make - Neither were you there, nor was any of us there to actually see what happened... So, your point best remains a "wild guess"..You should send it to some bollywood producer to make a movie with dancers running around a GSLV mockup...

Moron...Were you stoned or something? You don't appreciate anything good, nor do you do anything good other than criticize and make wild accusations without any basis...

bob said...

Robert David

Cryogenic technology involves handling liquid hydrogen near minus 265 degrees amost absolute zero temperature and liquid oxygen at around -200 degrees Centigrade and bringing it to the combustion chamber at ambient temperature,a range of three hundred degrees Centigrade.During this time the fuels have expanded to 900 times the volume they were when in the liquid state with a consequent rise in the flowrate which may reach supersonic levels where their shock wave which can tear the whole system apart.It is important to know pressure,flowrate,and temperature at various stages of the journey for which the instruments used in the gaseous range are quite different to those used in the liquid phase.There is also an intermediate phase known as the cloud phase which neither follows gas nor liquid laws but owes its existence to Van Der Waals forces. Even so the cloud has to be known and controlled completely.Pressure surges may completely alter the dynamic equilibrum of the whole affair at near explosive speed as as one phase suddenly changes into another.The biggest bugbear is the Joule Thompson effect which takes place due to the adiabatic expansion occuring at valves,regulators and various types of flowmeters to cause sudden cooling in the case of oxygen and a change back into the liquid phase playing havoc with a sudden surge as the regulator doesn't sense any back pressure.In the case of hydrogen the situation is far more dangerous as this gas has a reverse Joule Thompson effect in that it heats up instead of cooling down causing boiling and even fire at explosive speeds. Also very few materials and their method of fabrication will work at near absolute zero temperatures.Also there is a whole lot of expansion and contraction that occurs in a 300 degree temperature range throwing out all classical knowledge of design tolerances as things can jam up when least expected and open up when not supposed to.Even if one copy's a Russian manufactured engine ditto it might not work as the internal dimensions of pipework and smoothness is more important than the OD which engineers are prone to use.Also the alloys (secret under transfer of technology restrictions)they use may have different expansion and contraction characteristics than the ones we use.So be a little more kind to our scientists who are grappling with a terrible monster called cryogenic technology.

Unknown said...

Hi Bob!!

I do respect the efforts of our scientists. This post is in no way to ridicule or question their efforts on this issue.
At the same time, I believe to reduce the development time, we should reverse engineer and better the product to our requirements or needs.

Over the period of time, I have come to realise that yes our scientists are doing their job but the time factor is also important..