Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has delivered an indigenously-produced fourth stage propellant tank for the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket.
Producing the tank locally resulted in foreign exchange savings of Indian rupees (Rs) 12 million ($217,000), HAL chairman RK Tyagi said in a statement.
"The PS4 tank is a part of the fourth stage of PSLV," added HAL. "It will carry 1.6t of liquid propellant mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH) as fuel and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON-3) as oxidiser during the flight."
All machining was carried out at HAL, while the welding was carried out at ISRO's liquid propulsion centre and at HAL.
The PSLV has been India's launch vehicle of choice. It is a relatively small but capable launcher that has been used extensively by the Indian government and, in a few cases, to loft payloads for paying foreign customers. Much of the craft, although evolving, has been based on foreign technology.
In April, ISRO announced the signing of a commercial Launch Services Agreement between its commercial arm, Antrix, and the European satellite manufacturer Astrium, for the launch of the European remote sensing spacecraft, Spot 6.
The 800kg Spot 6 spacecraft is being built by Astrium and will be launched by the strap-on-less core alone (CA) variant of ISRO's PSLV during the second half of 2012.Some other undisclosed satellites will also be carried on this flight as co-payloads.
Source: Flight International