TURBOCAM India is Making Giant Leaps for Mankind

Story by Callie Patteson

TURBOCAM India is making giant leaps for mankind as the Goa team continues to participate in India’s ongoing and historic rocket launches into space.

On October 21, 2023, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced that the country successfully completed a flight test of their upcoming Gaganyaan Mission, which is expected to feature the first Indian rocket carrying humans into space.

While the rocket was not yet carrying its crew members, there were critical components onboard: TURBOCAM impellers.

For over 20 years, TURBOCAM India has supplied impellers for similar programs and projects pursued by ISRO. Based in the western state of Goa, the company has partnered with a subcontractor to supply these vital parts for various missions, such as the Chandrayaan-3 Mission which landed a rover on the moon in September.

Typically, TURBOCAM produces two different types of impellers to be installed in the rocket engine. In the October launch, TURBOCAM India supplied two UDMH fuel impellers and two N204 oxidizer impellers.

In 2023 so far, the plant has machined 15 impellers. Meanwhile in 2022, the plant produced 13 impellers. Currently, TURBOCAM India is the only manufacturer supplying these parts, making this production key to current and future Indian space launches.

The Goa plant is set to help make history next year as ISRO will be launching the first Indian rocket to carry humans into space.

Levlin Colaco, a project manager at TURBOCAM India, explained that until then, ISRO will continue to conduct several tests ahead of the anticipated 2024 launch.

“They will use a lot of components for those launches,” Colaco said.

While TURBOCAM India has had a long standing role in these ISRO missions, Colaco revealed his team is not always aware of which exact rocket their parts will be used for.

“We already know who the end user is. So we know who the parts are going to and where they’re going to be placed,” he explained.

However, sometimes after a launch – as in the case with the Chandrayaan-3 Mission – the team can confirm TURBOCAM parts were used.

As TURBOCAM India works to manufacture impellers for the historic launch next year, Colaco emphasized the importance of providing flawless materials.

“We have to be a little more careful about that. You cannot afford any failure,” he said.

By supplying these fine-tuned parts, Colaco went on to say that the Goa team’s work amplifies TURBOCAM’s core competency on a global scale.

“Our core competency is five axis machining of impellers. And these parts are actually examples of those.”

Michael Noronha, a product engineer at TURBOCAM in Barrington, praised the efforts of the India plant saying it supports the company’s goal to serve the rocketry market globally.

“We’ve already leveraged that expertise across our international business groups to compete for work in the European and Asian markets, and we’re proud to see the India team tackle these recent projects on their own successfully,” Noronha said.

“Turbocam seeks to serve the global rocketry market, which although dominated by North American players, is going to provide significant opportunities for us internationally.”