[
Establishment and Location ]
Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, located at Sriharikota, a spindle shaped
island on the East Coast of Andhra Pradesh, about 80 km north of Chennai,
is the spaceport of India. This island was chosen in 1969 for setting up
of a satellite launching station. Features like good launch azimuth
corridor for various missions, advantage of earth's rotation for eastward
launchings, nearness to the equator, and large uninhabited area for safety
zone - all make Sriharikota Range, popularly known as 'SHAR' an ideal
spaceport. Off Sullurupeta - a small town in Nellore district, Andhra
Pradesh on the national highway connecting Chennai and Kolkata - a 20
minutes drive towards the east on the road laid across the Pulicat Lake
takes one to Sriharikota. SHAR was named as 'Satish Dhawan Space Centre
SHAR' (SDSC), on eptember 5, 2002, in memory of Prof. Satish Dhawan,
former Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation.
[ Facilities and Activities
]
The facilities at SDSC include solid propellant production plant, rocket
motor static test facility, launch complexes for a variety of rockets,
telemetry, telecommand, tracking, data acquisition and processing
facilities, and other support services.
The first flight-test of 'Rohini-125', a small sounding rocket took
place
from here on October 9, 1971. Since then technical, logistic and
administrative infrastructure have been enhanced.
The establishment of state-of-the-art Second Launch Pad (SLP) is an
important addition to this centre. SLP will cater to the requirement
of
more frequent launchings as well as the requirement of both present
launch
vehicles as well as those planned in the coming decade.
The propellant production plant produces composite solid propellant for
rocket motors of ISRO using ammonium perchlorate (oxidiser), fine
aluminium powder (fuel) and hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene (binder).
The solid motors processed here include those for the first stage
booster
motor of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) - a five segmented
motor of 2.8 m diameter and 22 m length, weighing 160 tons with
a thrust
level of 450 tons.
Rocket motors and their subsystems have to be rigorously tested and
evaluated on ground before they are declared flight worthy. The
facilities
at SDSC SHAR are used for testing solid rocket motors, both at
ambient
conditions and simulated high altitude conditions. Besides these,
there
are facilities for conducting Vibration, Shock, Constant Acceleration
and
Thermal/humidity tests.
SDSC SHAR has the necessary infrastructure for launching satellite into
low earth orbit, polar orbit and geostationary transfer orbit.
The launch
complexes provide complete support for vehicle assembly, fuelling,
checkout and launch operations. Apart from these, the Centre has
facilities for launching sounding rockets meant for studying the
earth's
atmosphere.
The mobile service tower, launch pad, preparation facilities for different
launch stages & spacecraft, storage, transfer and servicing facilities
for
liquid propellants, etc., are the important installation in the
PSLV/GSLV launch complex.
[ Launch Achievements and Future Plan
]
For supporting the GSLV Mk III programme additional facilities are being
set up at SDSC. A new plant is being set up to process heavier class
boosters with 200 tonnes of Solid propellant. The static test complex is
being augmented for qualifying the S-200 booster. Other new facilities
include a Solid Stage Assembly Building, Satellite Preparation and Filling
Facility and Hardware Storage buildings. The existing liquid propellant
and cryo propellant storage and filling systems, Propellant Servicing
Facilities will also be augmented. The range instrumentation system will
be strengthened further.
So far, four SLV-3 launch vehicles, four Augmented Satellite Launch
Vehicles (ASLV), nine Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) and three
Geosynchronous Satellite launch Vehicles (GSLV) have been launched from
this Centre.
|
