The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is gearing up for the first flight of GSLV Mk-II this year.
ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan, on Wednesday said that the cryogenic stages of the GSLV Mk-II will be ready by mid-2012 (June-July) and that this would be followed by the first flight.
Speaking to Deccan Herald he said: “The cryogenic stage is going through advanced stages of ground testing. The stages will be ready by June and we should be able to have the first flight.”
ISRO had spent months trying to evaluate the GSLV programme in 2011 and had even put on hold some of the other programmes—with priority status allotted to the GSLV failure. The GSLV platform holds key to more than one important programme that India has in the pipeline, with the Chandrayaan-II being the first and the proposed manned mission to space being the second.
The proposed Indian Human Space Flight Programme, which is to launch an orbital vehicle carrying a two-member crew by 2015-17, will also have to be launched on a GSLV rocket that is yet to attain 100 per cent reliability.
Radhakrishnan also said that the experimental testing of GSLV Mk-III will be scheduled during the year, but did not elaborate on it.
He said that the first Indian satellite equipped with an active radar/microwave system ––the indigenously developed remote sensing satellite RISAT-1––will be launched in the current year.