Of six GSLV launches, only two were successes

SRIHARIKOTA - The GSLV rocket mission that failed Thursday was the sixth launched by India. Of the six, only two were successes and one a partial success. The rest could not accomplish their missions.

The two successful launches by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were in 2003 and 2004 - and put into space GSAT-2 and Edusat, an educational satellite.

The rocket’s maiden flight in 2001 could not attain success as it was not able to sling GSAT-1 into the intended orbit. The satellite could not be raised to the intended orbit.

The 2006 flight was historic for a dubious reason - for the first time ISRO destroyed the rocket mid-air soon after the take-off as it started backing up.

The last flight of GSLV was in 2007, which is considered a partial success.

In Thursday’s mission, the main indigenous cryogenic engine ignited when it was activated 300 seconds after the rocket blasted off, but two side Verinier cryogenic engines failed to ignite.

The mission, costing Rs.350-crore mission, was not insured. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Development 3 (GSLV-D3) rocket deviated from its path minutes after the rocket blasted off around 5 p.m.

ISRO chairman K.Radhakrishnan said: “The vehicle started tumbling and started losing altitude because two engines would not have ignited.”

The GSLV D3 blasted off with a GSAT 4 satellite but stopped emitting signals within minutes, after the rocket attained 60-km altitude.

The data from the rocket stopped coming after 505 seconds.

“The cryogenic state ignition order was issued by onboard computers as planned. Indication of cryogenic engine getting ignited was also obtained.”

“The cryogenic engine has two more Verinier engines, It seems they did not get ignited,” he said, adding a “detailed analysis will be done”.

Radhakrishnan said the next GSLV launch with an Indian made cryogenic engine will be launched within a year.

This is the first launch for Radhakrishnan after becoming ISRO chairman.