ISRO Chandrayaan-2 Mission By "Baahubali"

ISRO Chandrayaan-2 Mission By "Baahubali" GSLV Mk III M1 Rocket Explained

chandrayaan-2-ISRO-bahubali

 01  Isro pinpoints Chandrayaan-2 leak to ‘nipple joint’ of cryogenic engine

CHENNAI: Working overnight on the aborted Chandrayaan-2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) teams have pinpointed the leak in the GSLV-MkIII cryogenic engine to a ‘nipple joint’ of the helium gas bottle that supplies pressure to the fuel and oxidiser.

Why it happened remains the crucial question Isro engineers are trying to answer. Isro had 

aborted the Chandrayaan-2 launch 56 minutes before its scheduled lift-off at 2.51am on Monday. “The good news is that we can fix the leak without dismantling the rocket, since there is an access door to the gas bottle which is atop the oxygen tank,” a senior scientist told TOI. “The bad news is that unless we ascertain the reason for the leak, there is a probability of the problem recurring.” Not having to dismantle means Chandrayaan-2 may be able to fly before the end of the July launch window, but a final failure analysis will be available only in a day or two. 

Sources told TOI that the leak wasn’t serious enough to impair the flight, but Isro decided to apply “abundant caution,” given the importance of the Rs 978-crore project that would make India only the fourth country – after the US, Russia and China – to land a craft on the lunar surface. The helium gas bottle has a capacity of 34 litres and it was to be pressured up to 350 bars before regulating the output to 50 bars. “The leak was bringing down the pressure by four bars per minute. The rocket could’ve still made it, but we didn’t want to take any chances,” a source said. A 

veteran of Isro failure analysis said teams would now look at the proximity of the faulty ‘nipple joint’ to the oxidiser tank that stores liquid oxygen at minus 183 degrees Celsius. “If the joint was close to such a low temperature, the reason could be micro shrinkage of the joint. In that case we need to insulate it or shift the joint away from the coldest point,” the scientist said. Bigger leaks in the gas bottle can, besides affecting combustion and velocity, send the rocket spinning out of control. For now, Isro is confident of rectifying the fault and flying to moon without much delay. More than 

7,000 people from across the country had gone to the Sriharikota spaceport to witness the Monday launch. President Ram Nath Kovind was with senior Isro scientists at the mission control centre when the launch was called off at 1.55am.

 02  Chandrayaan 2: ISRO officials say too early to give new date for launch

Chandrayaan 2: A high-level committee since morning has started mining through the data to figure out what is the technical snag which led to the re-scheduling of the Chandrayaan-2 launch on the wee hours of July 15 morning.

The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) rocket was fully fueled up before a technical snag was noticed.

A top officer of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) told Financial Express Online that, “Everything is loaded. Now, the experts are analyzing the data to figure out the problem. These are the people who have been part of many launches and are well versed with the problems that could come up towards the last stage. Analyzing cannot be done overnight or in a rush. We cannot give any specific date or time about the launch.”

He was responding to a question about the news in a section of the media which said that ISRO has decided to launch Chandrayaan -2 later this month.

Also read: Chandrayaan 2 launch called off! Here’s why ISRO aborted India’s mission to Moon

“The data is huge every layer of the data needs to be studied to figure out what has caused the problem in the last stage of the rocket,” he added.

The Rs 978 crore launch had to be called off on Monday due to a technical snag in the ‘Bahubali’ rocket. Once all the data has been analyzed, and the snag identified, then it all probability, the rocket will have to be emptied of the fuel which is already there.

“And before any date is set, if there is a requirement to get down the rocket for further investigations, then it’s likely to take a few more days and depending on the weather conditions, a window for launch can be decided,” said the officer.

Also, the position of the moon has to be calculated as all the movement and the landing on the moon depends on that.

The ISRO had stopped the countdown and the mission was called off almost an hour before the takeoff scheduled for approx 2.51 a.m.

At a height of 44 meters tall, the 640-tonne rocket GSLV-Mk III is nicknamed ‘Bahubali’, the rocket is expected to carry the 3.8 tonne Chandrayaan-2. It has three stages — Orbiter 2,379 kg and has eight payloads, the lander Vikram -1,471 kg, and has four payloads and finally Rover `Pragyan’27 kg and two payloads.

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 03  ISRO calls off moon mission Chandrayaan-2 due to technical snag

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A technical glitch led India to call off the launch of Chandrayaan-2, the country’s second lunar exploration mission, at the last moment.

The rocket was scheduled to take off in the wee hours of July 15, from Sriharikota island in southern India. The country’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it had been cancelled as a “measure of abundant precaution.”

This was India’s first lunar mission in over a decade. In 2008, Chandrayaan-1 had found one of the earliest evidence of water on the moon.

Developed by ISRO, the Chandrayaan-2 module has three main parts: an orbiter, a lander, and a rover. As per the launch plans, the entire module would have been released from a GSLV Mk III rocket, while it circles the earth. The module will then slip away from the earth’s orbit and enter the moon’s. The lander was estimated to dissociate from the rocket and attempt to execute a “soft landing” (or a controlled landing) on the moon surface on Sept. 6.

If the plan succeeds, India would become the fourth country to soft-land a lunar mission, besides the US, Russia, and China.

A probe unit of India’s Chandrayaan-1 had made a crash landing on the moon. Its orbiter, though expected to function for two years, had died in less than a year.