Fighter Engine Complex with Safran France | SKYROOT Aerospace Privately Developed Cryogenic Engine

Video from the channel Global Outlook Bharat about Skyroot Aerospace, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:37. Language: English. Video type: News.

The video, in Hindi, brings together two stories from India's aerospace industry. The first is the creation of a new fighter engine complex with which India wants to develop, as a national mission, an engine of around 110 kN for the future AMCA advanced medium fighter. France's Safran is offering to develop it with technology transfer and to collaborate with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on its manufacture. The second is Skyroot Aerospace's presentation of its Dhawan-1 cryogenic engine, developed in-house by the company and dedicated to Professor Satish Dhawan, ISRO's second chairman, on the anniversary of his birth.

The piece recalls that the CAG auditing body noted that the engine technology transfer envisaged in the Rafale deal had not been completed. On Skyroot, it explains what a cryogenic engine is — one whose fuel and oxidiser are kept below around −150 °C — and that the Dhawan-1 runs on liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, a combination the video presents as cheap and suited to long missions. Its CEO, Pawan Kumar Chandana, says several tests have already been passed and that the company is building its own test stand to fire it.

For the air force, having its own engine is the path for future squadrons to fly with Indian propulsion, although the first aircraft will still depend on foreign engines. In Skyroot's case, the Dhawan-1 is not used on the first Vikram, but is intended for larger variants of the family; the company had already tested that rocket's upper-stage engine.