Article Posted on : - Jan 03, 2025

NEW DELHI (PTI): Bengaluru-based start-up Bellatrix Aerospace on Thursday said its home-built green propulsion system was test-fired for the third time onboard the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM), revalidating the technology that is used to steer satellites in orbit.

The Rudra High-Performance Green Propulsion System was fired for 60 seconds on Wednesday, which tilted the POEM-4 platform that is orbiting the earth at an altitude of 350 km after launching two SpaDeX satellites on Dec 30.

"We wanted to validate the exact same design once again to establish repeatability. Now, with this repeatability mission, our customers know that we are able to deliver the same success over multiple missions," Yashas Karanam, co-founder, Bellatrix Aerospace, told PTI.

The POEM-4 platform, which is the fourth stage of the PSLV rocket, houses 24 experiments by various ISRO labs, start-up companies and educational institutions. The participation of the private sector and educational institutions was facilitated by the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe), the regulator and promoter of the space sector in India.

The firing of the Rudra 1.0 green propulsion system imparted a disturbance of 1.4 deg/second in the Yaw axis on the POEM platform resulting in 80 degrees of angular rotation.

"The performance was really bang on. Even slightly better than last time," Karanam said. The Rudra system was earlier tested on the POEM-3 platform in January last year.

He said the same hardware from January 2024's space qualification was used in the ongoing mission reaffirming its dependable and repeatable performance.

"This is a proud milestone as propulsion systems are complex engines owing to challenging sub-systems. All subsystems used in the propulsion system are 100 per cent made at Bellatrix," Karanam said.

He said companies building and operating defence satellites and microsatellites were its potential customers.

"Our proprietary blend of fuel replaces a toxic fuel called hydrazine. The performance of our propellant is one of the highest, almost 15-20 per cent higher than the toxic fuels," Karanam said.