'It's a shock,' says ex-ISRO Chairman on GSLV launch setback
Veteran space scientist G Madhavan Nair expressed shock over the unsuccessful GSLV-F10 launch mission but said the ISRO is resilient enough to bounce back. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched a GSLV-F10 rocket, with an earth observation satellite (EOS-03) on board, on Thursday at 0543 hours as scheduled, from Sriharikota spaceport. Here are more details.
Such setbacks are not unusual, ISRO shouldn't lose heart: Nair
"Performance of first and second stages was normal. However, Cryogenic Upper Stage ignition did not happen due to technical anomaly. The mission couldn't be accomplished as intended," the space agency tweeted. Nair, during whose tenure of six years from 2003 as ISRO Chairman 25 successful missions were accomplished, indicated that setbacks of this kind are not unusual and said ISRO should not lose heart.
Normally, the cryogenic stage is the most difficult: Nair
"This is a very complex mission. Normally, the cryogenic stage is the most difficult one compared to all other rocket propulsions," Nair said. ISRO, he said, had mastered the cryogenic technology over years and its track record on this count isn't that bad compared to European countries and Russia where the failure of the cryogenic stage was in the range of about 20 percent.
We should go to root cause of the failure: Nair
"This is the eighth launch of the cryogenic stage. The first one was a problem (unsuccessful). Subsequently, all other launches turned in textbook performance," Nair said. "There's a finite possibility of failure with any such complex system. We need not be disappointed. But at the same time, we should go to the root cause (of the failure) so that we don't repeat," Nair said.
We'll recover from this shock soon: Nair
"It's a shock for all of us. But we'll recover from it soon and will be back on track. The ISRO community is resilient enough to face such difficulties," he added. EOS-03 was a state-of-the-art agile earth observation satellite that was to be placed in Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by GSLV-F10. Subsequently, the satellite was to reach the final geostationary orbit using a propulsion system.
These were the objectives of EOS-03
The objectives of EOS-03 were to provide near real-time imaging of large area regions of interest at frequent intervals; for quick monitoring of natural disasters, and episodic events. It was to provide real-time imaging for any short-term events; and to obtain spectral signatures for agriculture, forestry, water bodies as well as for disaster warning, cyclone monitoring, and cloud burst/thunderstorm monitoring, among others.
