JOIN US“The countdown began around 11:30 am for the GSLV-D3 and things are proceeding well,” an ISRO spokesman told Deccan Herald. The launch has been fixed for 4:27 pm on Thursday from the new launch pad at Sriharikota, sources said.
Two key features during the countdown are the filling of the liquid propellant and the cryogenic propellant into the rocket which have already begun, sources said.
The GSLV-D3 is slated to launch a 2,220 kg class GSAT-4 state-of-the-art satellite that carries communication and navigation payloads into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). This orbit lies at a height of 36,000 km over the equator.
This is the maiden flight of GSLV in which a wholly indigenously built cryogenic upper stage engine, developed at ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre at Mahendragiri near Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, is used.
Envisaged mainly as a “technology demonstrator” for advanced satellite communications, GSAT-4 to be put into the orbit would enable the testing of many future communications satellite technologies.
As the second launch pad at Sriharikota is agog with tense expectation, the 50-metre tall GSLV-D3 presents a majestic profile with a lift-off mass of 416 tonnes. It is a three-stage vehicle with solid, liquid and cryogenic stages.
DH News Service