Elon Musk congratulates ISRO for successful test firing of 'Vikas Engine' for Gaganyaan

The successful test of the third Vikas Engine conducted by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was recognized by space enthusiast Elon Musk who greeted the Indian space team on the achievement. The Twitter post by ISRO that informed about the programme was marked with a 'congratulation' comment followed by the Indian flag from the tech billionaire. ISRO, on July 14 (Wednesday) successfully launched the third long-duration hot test of the liquid propellant Vikas Engine for the core L110 liquid stage of the human-rated Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV MkIII) vehicle.

In a press release on July 14, ISRO stated that the objectives and the engine parameters matching with the predictions, hence the performance met the expectations for the entire duration of the test. The test was conducted for a duration of 240 seconds from its engine test facility ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC), Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu. The Gaganyaan Programme is going to be a major National effort, as per the ISRO. 

India's Vikas engine HTVE

The Vikas engines HTVE (High Thrust VIKAS Engine) and HPVE (High Pressure or Highspeed VIKAS Engine) developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) were tested in 2018. These were described as ISRO's “new class” engine and were tested for the duration of 195 seconds from the same ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC) located in Mahendragiri. According to, LPSC director Narayanan the next generation Vikas engine gave a significant advantage in terms of enhancing payload capability. ISRO used 5 engines for the highly complex mission Chandrayaan-2, which provided the space agency with a payload gain of around 250 kgs. These engines have taken approximately eight years into the building. 

Elon Musk hits out at space attackers

Meanwhile, Musk recently took to Twitter to pen a Haiku aimed at those who ‘attack space.’ In his heartfelt poetry, the multi-millionaire narrated how space gives hope to hundreds of thousands of people. Haiku is a type of short-form poetry originally from Japan that consists of five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. His post has already racked up more than 20 thousand retweets while over 242 thousand people have liked it.