Vikas (rocket engine)
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The Vikas (a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words''VIK''ram ''A''mbalal ''S''arabhai ) is a family of liquid fuelled
rocket engine A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accorda ...
s conceptualized and designed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in the 1970s. The design was based on the licensed version of the
Viking Vikings ; non, vĂ­kingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
engine with the chemical pressurisation system. The early production Vikas engines used some imported French components which were later replaced by domestically produced equivalents. It is used in the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) is an expendable launch system operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). GSLV was used in fourteen launches from 2001 to 2021. Even though GSLV Mark III shares the name, it is ...
(GSLV) series of expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. Vikas engine is used to power the second stage of PSLV, boosters and second stage of GSLV Mark I and II and also the core stage of GSLV Mark III. The propellant loading for Vikas engine in PSLV, GSLV Mark I and II is 40 tons, while in GSLV Mark III is 55 tons.


History

In 1974, Societe Europeenne de Propulsion agreed to transfer Viking engine technology in return for 100 man-years of engineering work from ISRO. The first engine built from the acquired technology was tested successfully in 1985 by
Nambi Narayanan S. Nambi Narayanan (born 12 December 1941) is an Indian aerospace scientist who worked for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and contributed significantly to the Indian space program by developing the Vikas rocket engine. He led ...
and his team at ISRO and named it Vikas.


Technical details

The engine uses up about 40 metric tons of UDMH as fuel and Nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) as oxidizer with a maximum thrust of 725 kN. An upgraded version of the engine has a chamber pressure of 58.5 bar as compared to 52.5 bar in the older version and produces a thrust of 800 kN. The engine is capable of gimballing. For launches from 2018 a 6% increased thrust version of the Vikas engine was developed. It was demonstrated on 29 March 2018 in the GSAT 6A launch second stage. It will be used for the four Vikas engines first stage boosters on future missions.


Variants


References


External links

* * {{Rocket engines Rocket engines of India Rocket engines using hypergolic propellant Rocket engines using the gas-generator cycle