The Salem Steel Plant facility has added another feather to its cap by manufacturing Russian-grade stainless steel sheets for the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
According to officials at the Salem Steel Plant (SSP), it collaborated with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to indigenously develop Russian grade ICSS-1218-321 austenitic stabilised stainless steel sheets which are used in the manufacturing of cryogenic rocket engines.
Stainless sheets of 2.3 mm and 0.6 mm thickness are used in the manufacturing of the CE20 cryogenic engine variant on the Chandrayaan mission. The sheets with 2.3-mm thickness were provided by the Salem Steel Plant. A release from the public sector unit said that ISRO used the SSP-made ICSS-1218-321 sheets to manufacture five other engines as well.
An official said a trial batch of stainless steel was first rolled out by scientists from Liquid Propulsion System Centre and the SSP over which Electro Slag Remelted (ESR) and forged slabs confirming to the Russian grade, were hot rolled at the Hot Rolling Steckel Mill. The 4 mm thickness of hot rolled coil was later cold rolled to 2.3 mm thickness, according to ISRO specifications.
Soil from Namakkal
Officials at SSP said ISRO authorities were satisfied with the quality of the sheets manufactured at the plant as it met the aerospace requirements.
A team led by S.Anbalagan, Director of Centre for Geoinformatics and Planetary Studies in Periyar University, helped ISRO to identify and produce the ‘lunar’ simulant soil for its lander and rover tests. The soil was manufactured from ‘anorthosite’ rock collected from the Sithampoondi and Kunnamalai villages in Namakkal. Mr. Anbalagan said, “Even before the launch of Chandrayaan-1 we had studied the properties of the anorthosite rocks in Namakkal and we have published papers confirming it to be closely similar with the lunar surface, based on its properties.”
