The home-grown geo-stationary satellite launch vehicle, GSLV-F06, was meant to put the GSAT-5P in orbit and gain India entry into a small club of countries with the technology to send heavy satellites into space.
Instead, it disintegrated amid orange and white plumes, scripting back-to-back failures for the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). The previous GSLV launch on April 15 this year had ended up in the Bay of Bengal because of a snag in India’s maiden indigenous cryogenic engine, which is activated in the third stage of the launch.
Today, the glitch happened in the first (solid-propelled) stage, surprising scientists because the GSLV’s early stages had been successful in every previous test. This suggests sloppy engineering rather than a basic design issue.
The double disaster this year has exposed as premature all talk about future manned Indian space missions, and also led to fears that the country’s second unmanned moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, may miss its 2013 deadline. ( )
Initial data indicate a communication snag today, Isro chairperson K. Radhakrishnan told reporters. The control command signals from the GSLV’s onboard computer failed to reach the first-stage circuits, causing the rocket to lose altitude, veer off its flight path and crack up under the heavy load on its structure.
The snag appeared 47 seconds after the 4pm lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, 80km from Chennai. Three seconds on, with the exploding vehicle out of control, it was decided to detonate it in keeping with protocol. This was done at 62 seconds, when the launcher was 8km above the Bay, although it was already breaking up by itself.
“Yes, it is disheartening,” Radhakrishnan said, adding his team would find out the cause of the snag. Even this launch had been postponed from Monday after a helium leak in the cryogenic stage, supplied by the Russians.
Asked if India would lose face overseas, Radhakrishnan said: “We learn from failures. This is part of the game.”
India wants to expand its satellite launch business to about $120 million a year —a quarter of China’s share of the world market. But although India has had success launching lighter satellites — in 2008, it sent 10 into orbit from one rocket -— it has faced problems sending up payloads heavier than 2,000kg, hobbling its commercial ambitions.
The 2,310kg GSAT-5P cost Rs 150 crore and the launcher, Rs 175 crore.“They are so successful with the PSLVs (polar satellite launch vehicles) and seem to be failing only with the GSLV. I don’t know why,” said M. Satish, Class IX student and son of an Isro staffer.
Three of seven GSLV launches have now failed compared with one failure out of 17 for the PSLV (its first launch in September 1993 was aborted). This could be because the GSLVs, which can develop more thrust thanks to the addition of liquid strap-on boosters and the cryogenic stage, are designed for heavier satellites.
Radhakrishnan said two launches next year would happen using the workhorse PSLV while a heavier satellite will be launched from French Guyana using the European Space Agency’s Ariane rocket.
Source :telegraph india
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