L&T Defence will soon start manufacturing rocket engines in Coimbatore to power launch vehicles for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Jayant Patil, member, L&T Board, said here on Saturday.
Speaking at a function the company had organised to deliver the 1,000th Integrated Propulsion Airframe System Hardware of Akash missile, he said it had just completed the ground breaking ceremony for a 5th plant in Coimbatore.
The plant that would be operational by the end of the current financial year would manufacture the rocket engines to cater to the increasing demand from the ISRO which plans a series of launches in the near future, said Mr. Patil, who is also the whole-time director, L&T Defence.
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It had a similar manufacturing unit in Vadodara and the Coimbatore factory would be in addition to that as the ISRO demand has doubled from the 10 to 12 sets a year until recently. The company chose Coimbatore because there was a good ecosystem of suppliers of components, he noted.
The company’s association with the ISRO was not something new. It was at least four decades old as it had been working since the time of SLV rockets.
Likewise, L&T Defence units in Coimbatore were also supplying the airframe for the BrahMos missiles and would supply more components.
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The company had also been associated with the Defence Research and Development Organisation in its missile development programmes and Akash surface to air missile was a major project for the company, Mr. Patil said and added that it also manufactured Akash sub systems like parts of radars and launchers.
A release from L&T Defence said that integrated airframe and system hardware was a critical system of the Akash missile comprising sustainer and booster motors and 112 sub assemblies, powering the missile with multi-directional and multi-target area defence.