CHENNAI: Contrary to initial apprehensions of an indefinite halt to the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission, whose much anticipated launch was called off at the eleventh hour on Monday due to a technical snag, ISRO officials claim the relaunch would happen by this month end and sources say it would be as early as July 23.
Scientists, who are privy to the developments at Sriharikota, told TNIE that the glitch was minor and would be rectified within two days, if no fresh troubles are encountered. “Engineers have assessed the problem and there is no need to dismantle the rocket,” sources at Sriharikota said.
Explaining what went wrong, sources said one of the nine helium gas bottles that are stacked in the cryogenic upper stage of the GSLV-MKIII rocket to maintain a threshold pressure of 330 bar during launch, has malfunctioned. “It’s not a leak technically.
Engineers just were not able to achieve the desired pressure. We were able to achieve about three-fourths, which was not good enough because this function is crucial to keep Liquid Hydrogen at minus 253 degrees centigrade and Liquid Oxygen at minus 183 degrees centigrade,” sources explained.
To a query, ISRO officials said there was no way to carry on with the mission carrying the technical snag. “Since we did not achieve a desired key parameter, the computers will not allow for the launch to take place. The only option would have been to override it, which cannot be exercised especially during such a high profile launch.”
Meanwhile, sources said in order to rectify the anomaly in the helium chamber, the propellants tanks - liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen - have to be lowered and brought to ambient temperature of about 70 degrees centigrade.”This process has begun. Once the anomaly is fixed, the rocket will have to undergo qualifying process. All this should not take more than a couple of days.” Chandrayaan-2 is the first operational flight of GSLV-MkIII. So far, it has done two successful development flights. India’s moon mission is being watched closely globally as it will be attempting to soft land near the lunar South Pole, where no one ventured before.
