HAL chips in with structural help for Mars mission

The Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has contributed to the successful launch of India's maiden mission to Mars Tuesday by making the heavy rocket's structural assemblies and propellant (liquid fuel) tanks.

"We delivered seven types of riveted structural assemblies and four types of welded propellant tanks for the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25)," HAL chairman R.K. Tyagi said in a statement here.

The defence behemoth also delivered the satellite structure and deck panel.

The satellite structure is an assembly of composite and metallic honeycomb sandwich panels with a central composite cylinder.

"The honeycomb panels and the composite cylinder were supplied by our composite manufacturing division and the structural assembly work was carried at our aerospace division," Tyagi said.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) integrated the payload (five scientific instruments), propellant systems and solar panels into the 320-tonne rocket, which blasted off from the spaceport at Sriharikota, about 80 km from Chennai, Tuesday afternoon.