LPSC, Godrej Aerospace and other propulsion system makers in India

[Indx TechStyle]

Thread to discuss, summarise and enlist existing and future rocket engines, boosters and new propulsion systems except SSLV stages and DMRJ/Scramjets.
SSLV' stages will remain at SSLV thread.

SSLV News, Discussions, Updates and Reports

Isro's plan: A rocket that can be made in 3 days Surendra Singh| TNN | Updated: Nov 22, 2017, 08:34 IST HIGHLIGHTS Mini-PSLV can be built at a cost of just 1/10 of original cost. The manufacturing cost of a launch vehicle is generally in the range of Rs 150 crore to Rs 500 crore across the...

defenceforumindia.com

I'm wondering if @porky_kicker can help to create a new thread on DMRJ.

Also, I'm going to let this one thread remain for Kerosene, Methane and HTPB engines. If it becomes messy, I will split it.

 

[Akula]

ISRO working on Methalox engine.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Design and Analysis of a Methane Pump for 10 Ton Class Rocket Engine
Nayak, Soumya Ranjan (2017) Design and Analysis of a Methane Pump for 10 Ton Class Rocket Engine. MTech thesis.

PDF (Fulltext is restricted upto 28.01.2020) Restricted to Repository staff only 4Mb

Abstract
In rocket propulsion, weight has a vital role on efficiency and cost of the program. Since fuel, oxidiser and delivery system contribute a major share of the total weight; so it is desirable to design an efficient fuel delivery system as well as proper choice of fuel. Methane is being considered as the next generation rocket fuel for its certain advantages over liquid hydrogen and kerosene. Pump-fed system is a well-established preferable fuel delivery system as compared to pressure-fed system. To obtain a reduced size of pump it is necessary to run the device at high rpm (more than 10,000rpm). For this high speed it is not possible to run the pump with electric motor or generator. This leaves turbine as a suitable alternative for primemover. Hence pump-fed system is commonly known as turbo-pump system; as it consists of turbine and pump. Pump gives the necessary pressure rise to the fuel and oxidiser while turbine acts as the prime-mover. The present work is limited to design and analysis of the pump part alone. Although pump-fed system has been successfully designed for various propellants, but the research is limited and new for methane as working fluid. Centrifugal pump is preferred to other kind of pumps because of its compact size for a given head rise and a larger throttling range. A high speed impeller demands for high inlet pressure to meet the NPSH requirement to avoid cavitation. Increasing the storage pressure of propellant will demand for a thicker tank and hence higher structural mass, which is undesirable for high performance. Hence an inducer is necessary before impeller to raise the propellant pressure from storage value to required NPSH value at inlet of impeller. The impeller is followed by a volute and diffuser assembly which is intended to give a directional flow to the fluid and convert velocity head into pressure head. The focus of the work is to determine the throttling range, pressure distribution, velocity distribution and performance evaluation for the assembly.

Item Type:	Thesis (MTech)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Inducer; Throttle; NPSH; Propulsion
Subjects:	Engineering and Technology > Mechanical Engineering > Cryogenics
Divisions:	Engineering and Technology > Department of Mechanical Engineering
ID Code:	8980
Deposited By:	Mr. Kshirod Das
Deposited On:	25 Apr 2018 11:31
Last Modified:	25 Apr 2018 11:31
Supervisor(s):	Sahoo, Ranjit Kumar and Panigrahi, Sridhar

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Cold tests were there back in October 2020!

Cold flow test of LOX-Methane Engine Technology demonstration was successfully carried out.

Timeline

website description

www.lpsc.gov.in

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Timeline of LPSC

 

[Akula]

Cold tests were there back in October 2020!

Timeline

website description

www.lpsc.gov.in

How much time the engine will take, to be used on a rocket?

 

[Indx TechStyle]

How much time the engine will take, to be used on a rocket?

May be a decade, it's at a too early stage to say.

 

[Varun2002]

Timeline of LPSC

Very clear chronicle of developments. One little bit of puzzlement- For Jan 2019 and April 2019 respectively, there is a mention of 'first propellant tank realised'for the P4 and P2 stages. What does this mean, that the specific material for constructing the tanks were used for the first time, or that these were the first propellant tanks made in India( please say it isn't so), and that before these, the tanks were mostly if not wholly imported? That would be hard to believe. Clarity sought!

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Timeline of LPSC
View attachment 81273

Waiting for the day when SCE-200 enters the list. With Covid-19 details and focus on Gaganyaan, among other missions, I don't think we should expect anything before December 2022 (means 2023 in ISRO lingo)

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Very clear chronicle of developments. One little bit of puzzlement- For Jan 2019 and April 2019 respectively, there is a mention of 'first propellant tank realised'for the P4 and P2 stages. What does this mean, that the specific material for constructing the tanks were used for the first time, or that these were the first propellant tanks made in India( please say it isn't so), and that before these, the tanks were mostly if not wholly imported? That would be hard to believe. Clarity sought!

In January 2019, we had first propellant tank made of Aluminium alloy for PSLV. In April 2019, it was first time that BrahMos Aerospace delivered a tank (private vendor added).

 

[Varoon2]

In January 2019, we had first propellant tank made of Aluminium alloy for PSLV. In April 2019, it was first time that BrahMos Aerospace delivered a tank (private vendor added).

What was it made of before then? Some steel alloy? Titanium??

 

[Akula]

SCE-200 to be tested in India after 3 months. To boost LVM3's payload capacity from 4 tonnes to 5.5 tonnes to GTO.: S. Somanath via Dainik Bhaskar (why not from a bigger media platform? )

ISRO ko privacy pasand hai. Darte hai ki koi secret pata chal jayega.

 

[Vamsi]

Latest updates

Semi-cryo upgraded GSLV-MK3 delayed to 2026

Next Gen Launch Vehicle

Gaganyaan derived Space tourism vehicle

RTG

Space based ASAT

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

Latest updates

Semi-cryo upgraded GSLV-MK3 delayed to 2026
View attachment 171703

Next Gen Launch Vehicle
View attachment 171704

View attachment 171705

View attachment 171706

Gaganyaan derived Space tourism vehicle
View attachment 171707

RTG
View attachment 171708

Space based ASAT
View attachment 171709

Good to see PS4 being used for our more practical ASAT capability development: co-orbital killer sats. (although they have announced this before as well)

But I seriously hope they aren't going to go for Methalox based Reusable HLV from the get go. Given how long we will have to wait for a Methalox reusable engine of this class, isn't it better to rely on the SCE-200 for now?

Also, no mention of a Gaganyaan roadmap beyond Space Station. Although they have loosely stated Moon and Mars, I was hoping they'll start looking at what kind of Moon Rocket they are thinking of. Maybe they are waiting to firm up the Reusable HLV design first......but still they should start at least planning it now.

 

[Vamsi]

Good to see PS4 being used for our more practical ASAT capability development: co-orbital killer sats. (although they have announced this before as well)

But I seriously hope they aren't going to go for Methalox based Reusable HLV from the get go. Given how long we will have to wait for a Methalox reusable engine of this class, isn't it better to rely on the SCE-200 for now?

Also, no mention of a Gaganyaan roadmap beyond Space Station. Although they have loosely stated Moon and Mars, I was hoping they'll start looking at what kind of Moon Rocket they are thinking of. Maybe they are waiting to firm up the Reusable HLV design first......but still they should start at least planning it now.

SCE-200 is not practical for this kind of RLV. It will have high payload penalty because of Low ISP. Also it many not have deep throttling capacity, because it wasn't designed for it from day one. It was designed for a winged rlv not this retro propulsion rlv

 

[Vamsi]

Good to see PS4 being used for our more practical ASAT capability development: co-orbital killer sats. (although they have announced this before as well)

But I seriously hope they aren't going to go for Methalox based Reusable HLV from the get go. Given how long we will have to wait for a Methalox reusable engine of this class, isn't it better to rely on the SCE-200 for now?

Also, no mention of a Gaganyaan roadmap beyond Space Station. Although they have loosely stated Moon and Mars, I was hoping they'll start looking at what kind of Moon Rocket they are thinking of. Maybe they are waiting to firm up the Reusable HLV design first......but still they should start at least planning it now.

ISRO is using CE-20 as a test bed for Methalox engine, so based on the data they get from this engine,they may develop an engine in the thrust range of Vikas. That thrust is enough for a Falcon-9 class rocket.We don't need 2000KN engine.

 

[Okabe Rintarou]

SCE-200 is not practical for this kind of RLV. It will have high payload penalty because of Low ISP. Also it many not have deep throttling capacity, because it wasn't designed for it from day one. It was designed for a winged rlv not this retro propulsion rlv

ISRO is using CE-20 as a test bed for Methalox engine, so based on the data they get from this engine,they may develop an engine in the thrust range of Vikas. That thrust is enough for a Falcon-9 class rocket.We don't need 2000KN engine.

SCE-200 and Merlin have similar enough specific impulse. As for deep throttling, yes it won't go down to 40% but SCE-200 can throttle down to 60%. Rest, clustering should take care of it. And ISRO did say they are designing it with reusability upgrades in mind.

No matter, even if SCE-200 isn't fit for the job, continue to develop the methalox but in the meantime, they shouldn't abandon existing plans of HLV based on cluster of 4 or 5 SCE-200.

Also, we need SCE-200 class methalox if we want to build a Starship-Superheavy kind of stack. Raptor is similar thrust and specific impulse. And if we ever build a Moon rocket, it would make a lot of sense to go down the Starship-Superheavy route instead of the Saturn-V and SLS route. Even the Chinese realized this and have now modified design of the Long March 9.

 

[Vamsi]

SCE-200 and Merlin have similar enough specific impulse. As for deep throttling, yes it won't go down to 40% but SCE-200 can throttle down to 60%. Rest, clustering should take care of it. And ISRO did say they are designing it with reusability upgrades in mind.

No matter, even if SCE-200 isn't fit for the job, continue to develop the methalox but in the meantime, they shouldn't abandon existing plans of HLV based on cluster of 4 or 5 SCE-200.

Also, we need SCE-200 class methalox if we want to build a Starship-Superheavy kind of stack. Raptor is similar thrust and specific impulse. And if we ever build a Moon rocket, it would make a lot of sense to go down the Starship-Superheavy route instead of the Saturn-V and SLS route. Even the Chinese realized this and have now modified design of the Long March 9.

ISRO isn't abandoning the SCE-200 based RLV, they are doing it, but Methalox engine will be more efficient. SCE-200 despite having more Isp than Merlin, has a very low T/W ratio than Merlin, hence SCE-200 based stage will have more empty weight than a Merlin based stage (assuming both carrying same amount of fuel) & this isbthe where the payload penalty comes

 

[Vamsi]

SCE-200 and Merlin have similar enough specific impulse. As for deep throttling, yes it won't go down to 40% but SCE-200 can throttle down to 60%. Rest, clustering should take care of it. And ISRO did say they are designing it with reusability upgrades in mind.

No matter, even if SCE-200 isn't fit for the job, continue to develop the methalox but in the meantime, they shouldn't abandon existing plans of HLV based on cluster of 4 or 5 SCE-200.

Also, we need SCE-200 class methalox if we want to build a Starship-Superheavy kind of stack. Raptor is similar thrust and specific impulse. And if we ever build a Moon rocket, it would make a lot of sense to go down the Starship-Superheavy route instead of the Saturn-V and SLS route. Even the Chinese realized this and have now modified design of the Long March 9.

Somanath sir confirmed that LPSC is developing a 80-100T thrust class throttlable Methalox engine

Watch from 17:22 in this video, he confirmed it here

 

[Jimih]

Hybrid motor