Success breeds success and few space agencies know this better than the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as it expands its space technology capabilities to have a larger presence in the global heavy-lift satellite launch market. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) 3, ISRO’s heaviest rocket, launched the Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission in 2019 — its first operational flight beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Late last month, the rocket renamed LVM3 (for Launch Vehicle Mark 3), put 36 communication satellites of a United Kingdom-based company into the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and is scheduled to carry another 36 more into LEO early next year.
As ISRO’s preferred choice for launching beyond LEO to the Medium Earth Orbit (up to 20,000 kms), and the Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GTO, of more than 35,000 kms), the LVM3 has burnished the agency’s credentials as a reliable low-cost launch source. But ISRO is not prepared to rest on its laurels — and rightly so, as it urgently needs more powerful low-cost launchers to compete with other space agencies.
ISRO chief S Somanath acknowledged this recently while interacting with the media in New Delhi, pointing to the development of “a new-generation launch vehicle for India that will be more cost-effective, reusable, easier to manufacture, and faster to produce”. ISRO is keen to collaborate with industry to develop the proposed launcher, christened Next-Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) before the decade is out. “The intent is to bring industry along in the development process,” Somanath said. “All the money need not be invested by us. We want the industry to invest to create this rocket for all of us.”
Several industry players are likely to put up their hands to partner with ISRO in getting the NGLV off the drawing board. They include the Chennai-based Agnikul Cosmos: India’s first private facility to produce rocket engines. Using additive manufacturing technology, the company makes 3D printed rocket engines, and is preparing to test-launch a two-stage booster, Agnibaan, in December. Another Indian startup, Skyroot Aerospace, based in Hyderabad, also builds small launch vehicles; and plans to launch its rocket, Vikram, in the next two months’ time. It is a win-win for both ISRO and these private companies who stand to gain a lot by collaborating on the NGLV project as it opens new doors of opportunity to a zealously guarded market.
ISRO’s trusted workhorse, the Polar SLV (PSLV), which has logged more than 50 launches so far, and has another 30 launches still to go, represents technology from the Eighties. Its successor, the NGLV is much more powerful with engines running on liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene to produce enough power to carry 20-ton payloads to LEO, and 10 tons to the GTO. This makes the NGLV’s development truly a leapfrog moment in technological advancement for ISRO.
But an even more remarkable achievement may be on the horizon — the development of the NGLV’s reusable variant, one that uses aerodynamic lift after re-entering the atmosphere to fly back to its launch pad like an aircraft. ISRO’s reusable launch vehicle (RLV) project, which has been on the shelf for many years, is based on such ‘fly-back’ boosters. The space equivalent of an airplane, an RLV typically uses an expendable rocket to reach LEO, and once its mission is completed it glides back to Earth like an aircraft, either landing on a runway or splashing down in the sea to be retrieved.
The ‘use and throw’ concept behind most space launch vehicles makes it prohibitively expensive to reach LEO. So the immediate result of an RLV would be to cut launch costs of heavier payloads, ensuring ISRO gets its fair share of the international launch market. As Somanath pointed out in a presentation at a recent conference, the NGLV could offer launch costs of $3,000 per kg of payload in the expendable format and $1,900 per kg in its RLV avatar.
If the LVM 3’s flawless performance is anything to go by, it should not take ISRO too long to overcome many of the engineering challenges in designing a single-stage-to-orbit space launch system — an RLV in which the lone booster is fully reusable. Such an RLV would cut launch costs dramatically as it could be re-used many times with low servicing expenditure. This would also allow ISRO to look even farther and perhaps design a logistics spacecraft to serve as a low cost supply ship, ferrying crew, and supplies to the orbiting space station that India intends to build by 2035.
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