Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has earmarked CE-20 engine for the next phase of the commercial mission with the United Kingdom-based OneWeb. The space agency highlighted in a tweet with a photo from the site, about the flight acceptance hot test of CE-20 engine which has been successfully carried out in the High Altitude Test facility of  IPRC at Mahendragiri for a duration of 25 seconds.

The test which happened on Friday. This CE-20 engine is assigned for the Launch of the next GSLV-MK3 mission- the LVM3-M3-identified for launching the next 36 nos of OneWeb India-1 satellites. This was the first commercial launch for the ISRO rocket.

The CE-20 engine develops a nominal thrust of 186.36 kN in vacuum, The cryogenic upper stage of the LVM3 vehicle (C25 stage) is powered by a CE-20 engine working with the LOX-LH2 propellants combination. 

The main aim for the, Friday’s flight acceptance test was to “confirm the integrity of the hardware, assessment of subsystems’ performance and tune the engine for meeting the mission requirement parameters and engine tuning for flight operation” the space agency elaborated.

ISRO launched 36 OneWeb satellites onboard is through a commercial contract space PSU New Space India Limited (NSIL) the NSIL – has signed two launch service contracts with Network Access Associated Limited, which runs on OneWeb, to launch the low earth orbit satellites and on board its launch vehicles. The mission was GSLV-Mk3’s first commercial mission and India’s first attempt to launch a commercial satellite in a non-PSLV mission.

The ISRO said, that analysis of the test data confirmed the satisfactory performance of the engine systems. adding that this engine will be assembled to the C25 flight stage being integrated for the LVM3 -M3 vehicle.

Featured Image Credit: Times Now News

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