On May 25, Avasarala Technologies Ltd, headquartered in Bengaluru, announced that it is going to hand over the 3,000th heat pipe manufactured at Avasarala’s facility in Bommasandra to ISRO satellite centre director Dr M Annadurai.
Now the firm, which is the tier-1 supplier of specialised and critical systems and components to strategic sectors, has secured more orders to supply heat pipes for Indian satellites, a top official said on Thursday.
“We have got additional orders from ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) to supply heat pipes for satellites it launches for various applications,” Avasarala chief executive T.T. Mani told reporters at an event in Bangalore.
Heat pipes are critical components for aerospace applications for spacecraft cooling and temperature stabilization due to their low weight penalty, zero maintenance, and reliability. Maintaining thermal uniformity is an important task with respect to orbiting satellites under adverse solar heating.
“Made of light-weight aluminum, heat pipes keep spacecraft cool and stabilise inside temperature, as thermal uniformity is critical for orbiting satellites under adverse solar heating,” said Mani.
The company has also received orders to make subsystems for semi-cryogenic engines the space agency is developing for launching heavy rockets to carry four tonnes and above satellites from its spaceport at Sriharikota, about 80 km northeast of Chennai.
The state-run Indian space agency had used all the 2,986 heat pipes the company supplied since 2003 in 38 satellites launched for communications, broadcasting, remote sensing and space exploration such as Chandrayaan-1 and Mars orbiter.