ISRO tests LME1100 gas generator

This note is verified. The reel was posted at about 5:22 pm IST on 19 October 2026. ISRO's release, "Development of LOX-Methane engine in ISRO", dated 16 October 2026, was read in full at about 4:57 pm IST on 19 October, and again at about 5:20 pm IST. India Today, timed 10:54 am IST on 19 October, and Deccan Chronicle, timed 12:46 am IST on 18 October, were read in full at about 4:58 pm IST. The three agree on the date of the test, the place, the thrust class, the cycle, the share of additively manufactured parts, and the vehicle family the engine is meant for. They do not use one phrase for when the integrated engine is targeted. Both phrases are kept.

The test ISRO describes is the first ignition of the full-scale gas generator for the LME1100. It took place on 9 October 2026 at IPRC, Mahendragiri. It was a gas-generator test. It was not a firing of the whole engine. India Today notes that the complete engine still needs integrated testing. Deccan Chronicle's report of 18 October confirms the same gas-generator facts: the 9 October ignition, 1,100 kN, a gas-generator cycle, more than 70 percent of components additively manufactured, and the NGLV. This note does not read that report as a test of the whole engine.

LME1100 is a 1,100 kN engine that burns liquid oxygen and liquid methane. LOX-methane is that propellant pair. The engine uses a gas-generator cycle. In that cycle, as the caption explains it, the gas generator produces hot gas that drives the engine's turbopumps. ISRO says more than 70 percent of the components were additively manufactured with Indian industry partners. The caption and India Today describe that manufacturing as 3D printing. ISRO says further tests are planned, to check performance under different conditions.

The date of the test and the date of the announcement are not the same. The ignition was on 9 October. ISRO published the release, with videos, on 16 October. Deccan Chronicle reported the test on 18 October. India Today reported it on 19 October.

What comes next is an integrated engine, not a launch date. ISRO's 16 October release says the integrated LME1100 is targeted by the middle of next year. The caption's reading of that line is that hot tests of the integrated engine would follow. India Today, at 10:54 am IST on 19 October, says the engine is targeted for mid-2027. Those are the two phrases on the record. Neither says the integrated engine has already been completed, and neither gives a month or a day.

The engine is for the Next Generation Launch Vehicle, which the caption expands as NGLV, and for a future heavy-lift vehicle. ISRO's release says a crewed lunar landing is targeted for 2040. That sentence is the landing target written in the release. It is not a launch date for the NGLV, and it does not say the LME1100 will fly in 2040. ISRO also says the design of a 2,400 kN LOX-methane engine has been completed, for a future heavy-lift rocket. The short form the release uses for that design is not expanded here. The sentence says a design has been completed. It does not say that larger engine has been built as a flight article, and it does not say it has flown.

The reel's footage is ISRO's. The credit on every footage screen is Courtesy ISRO. The clips, labelled on screen, are the full-scale gas-generator hot test of 9 October, an igniter test, and an earlier sub-scale test dated 6 March 2026. The poster is a still from that material, shown in full.

What was done on 9 October is the first ignition of a full-scale gas generator for a 1,100 kN LOX-methane engine. What was not done is a test of the integrated LME1100. What ISRO still names as a target is that integrated engine, by the middle of next year in the 16 October release, and mid-2027 in India Today's report of 19 October.