Agnibaan’s test flight shows Indian aerospace is done playing catch-up

livemint.com:

India's space ambitions: Market forces are with us Agnikul Cosmos has just demonstrated that it is no longer a matter of playing catch-up as the Agnibaan launch vehicle is cutting-edge in terms of technology. The engine is semi-cryogenic, meaning it uses a mixture of extremely cold fuel (liquid oxygen) and normal-temperature fuel (kerosene or aviation turbine fuel). Semi-cryogenic rocket engines are even trickier than fully cryogenic ones, which use a mix of very cold fuels.

It took decades for ISRO to independently develop a cryogenic engine as the US blocked technology transfers. The temperature differentials in semi-cryogenic engines require extremely specialised skills in material science and software to manage properly, apart from excellent design to ensure perfect functionality. Very few countries possess stable semi-cryogenic technology.

Just as impressively, the fabrication is done through single-shell 3D printing – a global first. 3D printing works by extruding material from the printer to create a three-dimensional object, just like a normal printer extrudes ink to create an image or a text document. It can be used to make guns, cars and houses and, as Agnibaan has just demonstrated, space launch vehicles.

One big advantage of 3D printing is that new units can be produced very quickly once the design is set. Agnikul claims it can produce a new launch vehicle to customer specifications within two weeks. That’s incredible, asit it takes more than six months (often over a year) to make a launch vehicle by conventional means.