ISRO conducts long-duration hot tests of Additive Manufactured Liquid Engine

ISRO achieved a major milestone with the successful hot testing of liquid rocket engine manufactured through Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology for a duration of 665 s on May 9, 2024. The engine used is the PS4 engine of PSLV upper stage.

The PS4 engine manufactured in the conventional machining and welding route has been in use for the fourth stage of PSLV which has a thrust of 7.33 kN in vacuum condition. The same engine is also used in the Reaction Control System (RCS) of the first stage (PS1) of PSLV. 

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The engine uses the earth-storable bipropellant combinations of Nitrogen Tetroxide as oxidizer and Mono Methyl Hydrazine as fuel in pressure-fed mode and was developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), ISRO.

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As part of the development programme, the injector head of the engine was realised and successfully hot tested earlier. Detailed flow and thermal modelling, structural simulation, and cold flow characterisation of the proto hardware were carried out to gain confidence for the hot test. Consequently, four successful developmental hot tests of integrated engine were conducted for a cumulative duration of 74 s which validated the engine performance parameters. 

Furthermore, the engine was successfully tested for the full qualification duration of 665 s and observed that all the performance parameters were as expected. It is planned to induct this AM PS4 engine into the regular PSLV program.

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