New Delhi: Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) has supplied special quality stainless steel from its Salem Steel Plant for India’s Moon Mission – Chandrayaan 2 meeting the ISRO’s requirements for stringent specifications, superior surface finish and close tolerances. Earlier as well, SAIL has collaborated with ISRO to provide quality steel for the country’s prestigious and indigenous space missions. For the Chandrayaan 2, SAIL’s special quality sheet has been used in the Cryogenic Engine (CE20).
The public sector monolith Steel Authority of India Ltd. along with ISRO have taken a major step forward as a part of the MAKE IN INDIA initiative advanced by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for indigenously developing the exotic Russian grade ICSS-1218-321(12X18H10T) austenitic stabilized stainless steel used in the construction of the cryogenic rocket engines that are being made at ISRO.
As a part of this initiative, scientists from Liquid Propulsion System Centre (LPSC) of ISRO and the SAIL team at its Salem Steel Plant have closely collaborated and successfully rolled the stainless steel coils at Salem. In this, Electro Slag Remelted (ESR) and forged slabs conforming to ICSS-1218-321 austenitic stainless steel slabs provided by ISRO has been successfully hot rolled in the Hot Rolling/Steckel Mill at SAIL’s Salem Steel Plant. This hot rolled coil of 4 mm thickness was further cold rolled to 2.3 mm thickness as required by ISRO. This 2.3 mm thick sheet has been used in the Cryogenic Engine (CE20) of Chandrayaan mission.
With this major breakthrough, SAIL is optimistic of leveraging other aerospace grades of stainless steel for the space launch vehicle components in the future.