HMT Machine Tools Ltd, Hyderabad, has commissioned and handed over three Axis CNC Vertical Facing Mill to ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota (SDSC SHAR).

General Technical Manager of HMT Hyderabad Unit BVSS Prasad handed over the machine authorisation key to ISRO Chairman K. Sivan at a function organised at SHAR on November 14 to inaugurate SDSC’s new facility set up for machining of Propellant, Inhibition and Insulation of Solid Rocket Motors.

It is a state-of-art CNC machine having large rotary table, of 4,800 mm, along with subsystems like high frequency spindle, pressurised control room as well as chip and dust collection system required for machining of various kinds of Solid Rocket Motors. The load carrying capacity is 200 tonnes. The maximum height of the job that can be machined is 12.7 meters.

This is the largest of its kind machine built by HMT Machine Tools, Hyderabad, a release from the company said.

The commissioning of the machine would help ISRO to increase production of large size Solid Rocket Motors for launching more satellites.

The cost of the machine is around ₹18 crore. HMT MTL Hyderabad is manufacturing three similar types of large machines for ISRO.