close on the heals of failure of Agni-III comes this news
INSAT 4C launch unsuccessful
SRIHARIKOTA: The much-awaited launch of INSAT 4C on Monday was unsuccessful with the GSLV carrying the satellite deviating a little bit from its chartered path, ISRO sources said. After the vehicle lifted off from the launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 1738 hours, there was a slight deviation from its path, following which ISRO officials put the entire system on 'emergency condition'. ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said "there has been a mishap in the first stage. Things have gone wrong in the stage of separation. We have to anlyse the data why it went wrong."
BANGALORE: Undeterred by the failure of Monday's satellite launch, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will go ahead with its next scheduled launch later this year and also carry on with its space programmes as planned.
"There is no change in our future launch programmes. As scheduled, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will be launched by this year-end to deploy Cartosat-2, an Indonesian remote-sensing satellite and a space recovery capsule in lower orbits," a top ISRO official said.
Unlike Monday's aborted Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) mission, the PSLV will take off from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, off the Andhra coast.
Preparations are under way to assemble the 295-tonne PSLV to carry the three payloads, weighing about 1.3 tonnes collectively.
The second launch pad, from where the GSLV-F02 was launched on Monday to carry the INSAT-4C communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit but veered off-course and exploded 60 seconds after lift-off, will be used only for heavier satellites in the two-tonne and four-tonne class for communications and broadcasting services.
"We are planning to launch the PSLV between October and December this year. The launch schedule will be decided once we receive the payloads and integrate them with the 44-metre rocket," said the official, whose organisation's rules do not permit his being identified.
"While the 610-kg space recovery capsule will be built at Sriharikota and the 660-kg Cartosat-2 at our satellite centre in Bangalore, the 56-kg Indonesian mini-satellite, christened Lapan TubSat, will be shipped from Jakarta," he said...
Dont forget that even the PSLV suffered failures before the system was perfected. I am sure ISRO is capable enough to overcome these initial problems with the GSLV and perfect the system.
iPosted Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 16:11 Updated Wednesday, September 06, 2006 at 21:18 Email Print
GSLV CRASH: The malfunction in the liquid propellants in the strap-on stage happened 0.2 seconds after the liftoff.
New Delhi: It was a sudden loss of thrust in the liquid propellant that led to the mid-air collapse of the GSLV system on July 10.
The malfunction in one of the four liquid propellants in the strap-on stage happened 0.2 seconds after the liftoff. This was the primary cause for the failed mission of GSLV-F02 on July 10.
Consequent to the malfunctioning of the strap-on motor, the launch vehicle carrying INSAT-4C, had to be destructed 62 seconds after liftoff. The system had fallen into the Bay of Bengal seconds of after the liftoff.
This was the finding of the Failure Analysis Committee, headed by K Narayana, former Director of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
It concluded that the sperformance of all sub-systems of the vehicle, except for one strap-on stage, was normal until 56.4 seconds after the liftoff, they ssaid. The FAC had submitted its report to ISRO on Tuesday.
Announcing the FAC findings, ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said that the recommendations of the committee have been accepted and necessary action initiated to implement them.
“The FAC had concluded that the design of GSLV was robust and recommended implementation of strict control on fabrication, inspection and acceptance procedures,” he added.
The ISRO chief said this means no setback to India’s space programme. ISRO is going ahead with the scheduled PSLV launch by October-end this year and the INSAT 4C launch in mid-2007.
The launch vehicle carrying the fourth generation INSAT satellite INSAT-4C, aimed at giving a fillip to Direct-to-Home television broadcast, had taken off at 1738 hrs, IST on the fateful day, but moved away from the pre-determined path and was later destroyed mid-air.
Nair had initially said the mission failed due to a glitch in the separation of booster from the launch vehicle and announced the setting up of the 15-member FAC to go into the details of the failure and recommend necessary remedial measures.
It was asked to review the performance of all the sub-systems from lift off to termination of the flight.