India's space odyssey stalled as rocket explodes

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh), (IANS) India's ambitious space programme suffered a blow Monday when a launch vehicle that was to put a communications satellite into orbit exploded moments after launch here but scientists pledged to come up with a new satellite within a year.
The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle GSLV-FO2 blew up into a huge ball of fire after deviating from its flight path while the INSAT 4C system plunged into the sea, causing despair among India's scientific community. The mission control at the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Sriharikota station gave the command to destroy the 2,168-kg satellite the rocket was carrying in order to prevent any disaster to populated areas.

'We had a mishap this evening,' ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair told the media at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota island, off Andhra Pradesh, describing the failure as 'a rare phenomenon'. He said one of the strap-on engines in the first stage of the launch vehicle under performed, causing the failure. Emergency measures were resorted to and the ISRO mission control gave the destroy command for its Rs.960-million satellite and Rs.1.6-billion launch vehicle, ending years of effort by hundreds of scientists, to ensure that the debris fell into the sea.

It was the first time an INSAT series satellite was launched from an Indian space station. It was the heaviest of ISRO satellites. 'The lift-off was normal. Within a few seconds, however, it was clear that the vehicle was not following the trajectory. After 60 seconds of the lift-off, parts of the vehicle were falling off,' the ISRO chief said. Nair did not rule out sabotage but said that he would not be able to anything definite unless he analysed more data 'on what happened this evening to INSAT 4C'. This, he said, would be available within the week. The INSAT 4C failure came a day after the Defence Research and Development Organisation's long-range ballistic missile Agni-III, capable of carrying nuclear warhead and travelling 3,500 km, failed in its test firing.

Nair said: 'In one of the four strap-on engines in the first stage of the launch vehicle, the pressure had fallen below zero.' This created an imbalance in the thrust to the lift-off. 'We could control this up to 45 seconds of the lift-off.' The vehicle's normal inclination was supposed to be about four degrees but by the time it was 60 seconds in the air it had tilted to 10 degrees or more. 'More telemetry data is required. The process to gather this data has been initiated,' Nair said. The launch, originally scheduled at 4 p.m., was postponed to 5.17 p.m. and then to 5.37 p.m. There was some fuel leak in the cryogenic third stage of the launch vehicle, which engineers had to put right at the last minute.

'This delay had nothing to do with the vehicle but was a ground-system problem,' Nair clarified. He described the failure as a 'setback' but noted 'ISRO had a success record for the last 11 missions' and promised to get another satellite up in a year's time. The third satellite in the INSAT-4 series - INSAT-4B - is to be launched from Kourou in February 2007. Nair said that those who had bought transponder services for the INSAT 4C would be accommodated in INSAT 4B transponders and with yet another new satellite later. The INSAT 4C satellite was to be placed 36,000 km from earth, by the 49-meter tall GSLV from the second new state-of-the art launch pad at the Sriharikota space station, 80 km north of Chennai.

The satellite contained the latest set of 12 Ku-band 36 MHz bandwidth transponders that were designed to provide direct to home (DTH) television services, transmit video pictures, assist digital satellite news gathering and support the National Informatics Centre for its VSAT link. The final orbit of the NSAT-4C satellite was to be geostationary, at 74 degrees East longitude. The launch vehicle, in its second operational flight already had two successful test flights. In April 2001 it put the 1500-kg GSAT-1 satellite into orbit, followed by GSAT-2 in May 2003.