Rocket liftoff set to boost space drive

NEW DELHI: India’s most powerful homegrown rocket to date is set to launch Monday, another milestone for its indigenous space programme that one day hopes to put a man into orbit.

The 43-metre rocket was scheduled to lift off just after press time last night from the southern island of Sriharikota, one of two sites used by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch satellites.

This latest model boasts a powerful engine that has been developed in India over many years. Programme managers hope the technology will reduce reliance on European engines that have propelled some of India’s spacecraft in the past.

The GSLV Mk III rocket will carry a satellite weighing more than three tonnes into a high orbit above Earth, a landmark achievement as India had struggled to match the heavier payloads of other space giants.

“This is an important moment in India’s space technology to launch an indigenous heavy rocket,” Ajay Lele from the Delhibased Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses said.

“Communication satellites are quite heavy and we were able to send up to two tonnes previously. This is a double quantum jump for India.”

A successful launch of the 640-tonne rocket will be another feather in the cap for scientists at ISRO, who won Asia’s race to Mars in 2014 when an Indian spacecraft reached the Red Planet on a shoestring budget.

That feat carved out India’s reputation as a reliable low-cost option for space exploration, with its US$73-million price tag drastically undercutting Nasa’s Maven Mars $671-million mission.

ISRO is also mulling the idea of missions to Jupiter and Venus.

India wants to become the fourth nation — after Russia, the US and China — to put astronauts into orbit, but its programme has seen multiple stops and start.