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At the Aryabhata Space Utsav, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Arumugham Rajarajan revealed that ISRO has proposed the expansion of the capacity of the Next Generation Launch Vehicle. The height of the rocket has been revised to 98 metres tall with a diameter of 6.5 metres. This was previously a 92 metre tall rocket with a diameter of five metres. 6.5 metres was the planned capacity of the Lunar Module Launch Vehicle, the mega-rocket ISRO is developing for its first crewed lunar mission. The designs of the NGLV and the LMLV have now converged, with the LMLV being the NGLV with strap-on boosters.
The slide showed during the presentation. (Image Credit: ISRO).
The development of the NGLV was formally approved by the Union Cabinet in September last year, with a funding of 8,240 crores and a planned development timeline of eight years. ISRO has planned three developmental flights for the NGLV, which is being developed as a partially reusable rocket, with the first stage being recovered and reused after flight. ISRO is also using environmentally-friendly fuels on the rocket. The planned NGLV is now twice as high as the tallest operational rocket in ISRO's fleet, the GSLV. ISRO is also working on the Vertical Landing test vehicle to demonstrate the capabilities for booster recovery.
The NGLV dubbed Soorya has seen a number of design revisions over the course of a single year. At the start of the year, the height was 91.4 metres, which was then revised to 93 metres by the middle of the year, with the height reaching 98 metres by the end of the year. Hopefully the design is now stabilised. The planned timeline for the development of the NGLV and the LMLV are 2033 and 2036 respectively. Now that the NGLV and the LMLV are variants of the same vehicle, the development is also simplified. ISRO will be relying on the upgraded version of the LVM3, the mightiest rocket in its fleet, for the ambitious Gaganyaan programme to lift humans to Earth orbit and return them safely back to the ground.
