ISRO Chief Inaugurates New HAL Facility To Promote Rocket Manufacturing

In a significant boost to India's space program, S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), opened cutting-edge Propellant Tank Production and CNC Machining facilities at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's (HAL) Aerospace Division.

The newly constructed facilities will greatly improve ISRO's ability to meet its rising production requirements, particularly for the Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM3), India's heaviest and most powerful rocket.

Somanath praised HAL's efforts and underlined the need of using the company's huge resources for the greater good of both companies. "HAL will play a larger role in ISRO's future missions, hence should focus on emerging technologies, designing challenges, and take up end-to-end tasks to ease pressure on ISRO," he stated.

With present capacity limited to only two LVM3 launches per year, the new facilities will allow HAL to manufacture crucial components for six LVM3 launches per year, fulfilling ISRO's rising needs.

The propellant tank manufacturing plant will specialize in producing high-performance fuel and oxidizer tanks, which are critical components of the LVM3 launch vehicle.

The LVM3, also known as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III), is a three-stage heavy-lift launch vehicle designed to place satellites in geostationary transfer orbit and beyond. It can carry payloads weighing up to 8 metric tons to low Earth orbit and 4 tons to geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The opening of these facilities represents an important milestone in the collaboration between ISRO and HAL, two of India's leading aerospace institutions.