India’s biggest mobile satellite launcher, indigenously designed, is being built inside a PSU factory at Dhurwa. The metallurgy work of project Mobile Launch Pedestal (MLP) is complete but the engineering work is expected to be finished by the end of this year and handed over to the Indian Space Research Organisation for tests. MLP is a fabricated steel structure which is meant for launching Geo Stationary Launch Vehicle(GSLV) MkIII.

Earlier the launcher fabricated by TISCO in Jamshedpur was for PSLV and GSLV, which are of ‘much smaller size’, say sources. GSLV Mk III will be used for the Department of Space’s Moon Mission. The Chandrayana and other GSLV series of satellites for which the mobile launcher is being readied by the Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) will be test fired in 2008.

On February 17, a delegation, led by the ISRO’s Sriharikota-based Satish Dhawan Space Centre’s Director M Annamalai, inspected MLP in HEC complex. Annamalai had asked the project incharge D N Tripathy to complete the job by December 31. Tripathy confirmed to The Indian Express that his company is working hard to meet the deadline. “We will deliver it before time,” he said.

A new Solid Stage Assembly Building (SSAB) for MLP will be built. The SSAB is a RCC building of 40.0 metre length with a height of 58 metre and is planned at a distance of 256 metre from the existing Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). The SSAB is just beyond VAB but is situated on the same track from the launch pad. S200 satrapons and L110 motor of GSLV MkII vehicle are to be assembled over MLP in SSAB, states a report (a copy of which is with The Indian Express) prepared by the HEC.

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