Quote:T.S. Subramanian



The launch of the Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F06) from here on Saturday ended in a failure, with the vehicle losing control 47 seconds after its flight, breaking up into pieces and erupting into a ball of flame. As the vehicle veered off the safety corridor and the flaming debris could have fallen on the residential areas around Sriharikota, Range Safety Officer (RSO) V.K. Srivastava pressed the “destruct” button and the explosives around the vehicle ignited and destroyed it.



The destruct command was given 63 seconds after the lift-off.



When the vehicle disintegrated over the Bay of Bengal, it had reached an altitude of eight km and 2.5 km from the Sriharikota coastline. Gloom engulfed the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) engineers as they saw the disaster striking the vehicle.



ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrisnan said at a press conference: “The controllability of the vehicle was lost after 47 seconds because we found that the command to control it did not reach the actuator system in the first stage of the vehicle… We suspect that a connector chord, which takes the signal down, has snapped.”



Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvanthapuram P.S. Veeraraghavan explained that the command to control the vehicle from the Equipment Bay, the electronic brain of the vehicle resident atop the rocket, did not reach the actuators in the vehicle's first stage. “So it was not basically a design problem but a problem of the connector snapping.”



The GSLV-F06, carrying communication satellite GSAT-5P, had a flawless lift-off at the appointed time of 4.04 p.m. It climbed majestically into the sky as the four strap-on booster motors around the core first stage and the first stage itself ignited on time.



The vehicle performance was normal up to 50 seconds. Soon afterwards, it lost control, went here and there, exploded into a ball of fire, and then it was destroyed. White, reddish orange and dark grey smoke filled the sky even as the flaming debris, like the shooting stars, rained down.



Four GSLV failures



The previous GSLV flight in April 2010 also failed. Out of seven GSLV flights from 2001, four, including the latest, have failed.

Quote:PTI Describing the failure of the GSAT-5P communication satellite launch on Saturday evening as “very tragic”, India’s top space scientists said the launch vehicle going up in flames soon after the lift-off was “a major setback” for ISRO.



Senior space scientist Prof. Yashpal, in his first reaction to the failure of the satellite launch, said, “It is very tragic. I think something has happened in early stages. I have never heard of such a thing, as we have had several successes before.”



Noting that the GSLV-F06 launch vehicle had disintegrated in its initial stages itself, Prof. Yashpal said, “We did not get up to the liquid stage. It is terribly sad that something somewhere has gone amiss. A lot of data is available. So they will be able to find out what went wrong.”



He felt that this was “a freak mishap” as the early stages of the launch vehicle had been tested several times by India and have a 100 per cent success rate.



“It (the problem in the launch vehicle) cannot be something fundamentally wrong. It must be something big. It is unfortunate. This is an accident of some sort,” he said.



Former Indian Space Research Organisation engineer Madan Lal, in his remarks, said there seemed to be “some technical problem” in the first stage of the launch vehicle and not with the Russian cryogenic stage that India was using for the satellite launch this time.



“Cryogenic stage is the third stage of the launch. It (failure) appears not to be linked with the cryogenic stage,” he said.



Mr. Lal said India had time and again succeeded in the early stages of the launch vehicle and that part was not a problem area for ISRO scientists.



Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) research fellow Ajay Lele said it was “a huge setback” for ISRO. But, he said, the scientists would be able to come back and re-launch the satellite soon.



“It was an important mission for ISRO. It is supposed to be one of the heaviest satellites ever tried by ISRO. In the business of satellite launches, failures are a part of the game,” he remarked.

Quote:Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) flights from Sriharikota seem to be jinxed. Out of seven GSLV flights from 2001 till the latest flight on Saturday (December 25, 2010), four have failed. The previous GSLV flight on April 15, 2010 also ended in failure.



The very first flight in March 2001 was aborted one second before the lift-off because one of the four strap-on booster motors around the core first stage did not develop adequate thrust. So the computer aboard the rocket aborted the flight. Indian Space Research Organisation's rocket engineers solved the problem in less than a month and the flight took place on April 18, 2001. But the Russian cryogenic stage atop the vehicle underperformed and the satellite GSAT-1 was put in lower orbit than targeted. So the ISRO had to fire the liquid apogee booster motor on board the satellite more than needed to put the vehicle in the geo-synchronous orbit. Thus precious fuel was lost and the satellite ultimately came down in its orbit. The mission ended in failure.



The next two GSLV flights were a big success and they put their satellites in orbit.



But the flight of the GSLV-F02 on July 10, 2010, with INSAT-4C, ended in failure because of a manufacturing defect in one of the components of four strap-on booster motors. The vehicle was destroyed in mid-flight by the Range Safety Officer and its debris fell into the sea. The ISRO salvaged some parts of the vehicle from the Bay of Bengal.



The third failure took place on April 15, 2010 when the GSLV-D3 did not put GSAT-4 in orbit. This flight had raised a lot of hopes because it carried an indigenous cryogenic engine. It did not succeed due to the failure of the fuel booster turbo pump in the Indian cryogenic upper stage. [color="#0000ff"]There were two reasons for this failure — gripping at one of the seal locations and seizure of rotor rupture of turbine casing caused probably by excessive rise in pressure and temperature.[/color]



The [color="#0000ff"]GSLV-F06 flight on Saturday has also ended in failure because a command to control the vehicle did not reach the actuator in the first stage of the vehicle.[/color] This vehicle carried a Russian cryogenic stage in the third topmost stage.



After a delay of five days, because of leak of helium gas from one of the valves in the Russian cryogenic stage, the GSLV-F06 finally took off on Saturday.



While it cost Rs. 175 crore to build the GSLV-F06, for the GSAT-5P it cost Rs. 150 crore.



The GSLV is a three-stage vehicle, with the first core stage powered by solid propellants, four strap-on motors around the core stage, which are fuelled by liquid propellants, the second stage propelled by liquid propellants and the third topmost stage uses cryogenic propellants.

Quote:Srinivas Laxman, TNN, Dec 26, 2010, 12.46am IST MUMBAI: The second failure of the Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in a span of six months is expected to have a serious impact on Isro's three important space programmes, according to space scientists here. On April 15 this year, a GSLV, powered for the first time with an indigenous cryogenic engine, failed. On Saturday, the mission flopped following a technical snag in the first stage of the rocket.



Speaking to STOI, TIFR space scientist [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=M%20N%20Vahia"]M N Vahia[/url], who has had a long association with Isro, specifically mentioned three projects which could suffer a temporary setback — the Rs 425-crore second Indian [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Moon-%28astronomy%29"]moon[/url] mission, Chandrayaan-2, which will be flown by the GSLV. "Well, Saturday's failure will certainly produce delays in the second lunar programme. If my payload was being flown on this mission using a GSLV, I would certainly want this rocket to be tested and evaluated more thoroughly," he said. As of now, the mission is slated for lift off in 2013.



Also to be affected could be the nearly Rs 13,000 crore human space flight mission, for which a formal green signal is still awaited from the government, Vahia said. [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Isro"]Isro[/url] chairman K Radhakrishnan has been quoted as saying that this flight will take off around 2015.



According to Vahia, there could be delays in launching India's communication satellites from Sriharikota because Isro is running out of cryogenic engines. With just one Russian cryogenic engine left, Isro is in a position to schedule just a single flight of the [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=GSLV"]GSLV[/url] firmly in future. The Indian cryogenic engine is not operational. The question arises whether the space agency will have to depend on foreign launchers like Ariane for some more time to carry its communication satellites.



"What happened on Saturday afternoon at Sriharikota was an unnerving situation because India's reputation as a reliable space launching country has taken a serious dent," said Vahia.



Secretary of [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/India"]India[/url] chapter of Moon Society, Pradeep Mohandas, said: "If I were the vehicle director, I would subject all the stages of the GSLV to more exhaustive tests again before launching a flight."



Nehru Planetarium director Piyush Pandey expressed confidence that the GSLV will be used for Chandrayaan-2 though he felt "there could be a marginal delay if not a major one."



The most affected by these two GSLV failures are the scientists of Isro's Ahmedabad-based [url="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/search?q=Space%20Application%20Centre"]Space Application Centre[/url] whose payloads flown by this rocket have headed for the sea rather than the sky. The GSat-4, with important payloads which was carried by the GSLV, went into the Bay of Bengal on April 15 followed by GSat-5P on Saturday.



It is in this context that Pandey's remark assumes significance when he said that the next flight of the GSLV should have a dud satellite rather than an operational one which will allow the rocket to be tested.



According to other space scientists the weight of the GSat-5P, which was 2,310kg, resulted in Indian and Russian engineers having to modify the parts of the rocket to lift the satellite which is the heaviest payload ever to be flown by an Indian rocket.



Eminent astrophysicist S M Chitre however sounded a note of optimism when he said: "We will succeed and we should not give up the capabilities of the GSLV."

Quote:Experts analysing the voluminous data are of the view that a hardware problem or defect has led to the snapping of the four connectors (signal chords) resulting in the blowing up of the rocket in the first stage itself," the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official said.



Hinting at what might have happened after a perfect lift-off in less than a minute, the official said that the mission failed after the link got snapped resulting in the 418-tonne rocket going out of control and forcing the mission control centre to give the destruct command.



"The signals are transmitted from the flight control system in the equipment bay to various propulsion stages to control the rocket. In this flight, the data shows that signal link got snapped. The moment we noticed the rocket breaking up, the destruct command was given to ensure that the debris did not fall on the land but in the sea," the official said on condition of anonymity.



Seventh in the GSLV series, the 51-metre tall rocket, carrying the 2.3-tonne advanced communications satellite (GSAT-5P) with 36 transponders, exploded barely a minute after it blasted off from the spaceport of state-run ISRO at Sriharikota, about 80 km northeast of Chennai.



According to initial reports, the launch vehicle lost control and began to wobble due to heavy structural loads gushing up earlier than anticipated when it was at an altitude of 8 km in space and 2.5 km from the spaceport coastline over the Bay of Bengal.



It burst into flames 63 seconds after lift-off.



"Though the four strap-on motors in the first stage and the solid stage propellant fired as programmed, the rocket began to deviate from the flight path and wobble. Initial results showed that the connectors that take control commands and signals from the on-board computer did not reach the electronics actuation stage," the official pointed out.

Quote:Madhumathi D.S.



Bangalore, Dec. 26



Scientists and administrators of the nation's space establishment are still trying to come to terms with the Christmas Day shocker, when a presumably tried and tested GSLV satellite launcher went bust soon after take-off. There is apparently now a greater urgency than before for them to perfect and push the indigenous cryogenic stage within the next 15 months.



While Saturday's GSLV-F06 used the penultimate of the seven Russian cryo stages, the other failed GSLV (called D3) of April this year was testing the ISRO-built cryo stage for the first time.



“This (the December 25 loss) is a setback. We had not expected this to fail,” admitted Mr S. Satish, ISRO's Director for Public Relations and spokesman.



Asked if the Indian cryogenic stage that is being fine-tuned after the initial failure was being put on the fast track, he said it would be known in the coming days.



The GSLV is ISRO's vehicle to lift 2000-kg spacecraft into equatorial, Earth-facing orbits that are 36,000 km away. The PSLV is its lighter lift for carrying satellites to 900 km and mainly pole-pole orbits.



“There is no issue for the next one-and-a-half years,” Mr Satish told Business Line. “We should be comfortable with what we have. Thereafter, hopefully we should have our own [cryogenic stage] by then.”



Next launch



According to him, the next GSLV was not due for at least 12-15 months. The last Russian stage would be used for the communication satellite that will come up for flight towards the end of 2011-12.



The Indian cryo stage is being ground-tested at its centres in Thiruvananthapuram. “We have identified the problem with the first flight” that failed in April, he said.



ISRO had done the due for the calendar of April 2010-March 2011, and flown two GSLV launches as planned. It had also planned two PSLV launches and one of them is due around February.



DOUBLE WHAMMY



For now, the space agency, Mr Satish said, was equally concerned on two counts: the loss of GSat-5P carrying 36 transponders for continuing broadcast and communication services; as well as the failure of the rocket, which sets back the GSLV programme. However, the existing fleet of satellites would suffice.



In a worst case, the loss of GSat-5P could warrant leasing of capacity on a foreign satellite, he conceded.







More than 24 hours after the failure, ISRO, unlike during other failures, had not yet put out an official statement on its first assessment of what went wrong with the GSLV-F06. “Launch of GSLV-F06/GSAT-5P mission not successful” was all its Web site was flashing until Sunday evening.



“Our scientists are looking into data and trying to analyse what went wrong,” Mr Satish said.



F06, the vehicle that flew on December 25, was the sixth GSLV outing using the Russian cryogenic stage in its third stage and all but one of the earlier missions had passed muster. “This is different from the developmental flight of April 15 [GSLV-D3] in which we were trying to use our own cryo stage. In that case, we couldn't expect the indigenous stage to be successful in the very first flight.”

Quote:Bangalore, Feb 11, (PTI):

India did not believe in space wars but had all the technology required to integrate systems to defend its satellites, V K Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, said on Friday.

"Our country does not have a policy to attack anybody in space. We don't believe in it. But as part of the Ballistic Missile Defence Programme, we have all the technology elements which are required to integrate a system through which we can defend our satellites or take care of future requirements."



As a country, "we do not believe in space wars", he said in response to a query whether India had anti-satellite weapon capabilities.



India did not have a formal anti-satellite weapon policy of attacking satellites in space, but was well geared in case of any eventuality, he told reporters here.



Giving updates on the various defence programmes, he said the 'Nirbhay' project, relating to a subsonic medium range cruise missile, is undergoing integration and the first flight trial is expected early next year.



Discussing the Hypersonic cruise missile, he said it was one of the most complex technologies under development with only two countries -- US and Australia -- having done it so far. He said the engine for the missile had undergone a test of 20-second duration on the ground and had performed "reasonably well".



He expected that in early next year the flight test of Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle can be conducted in which they would be able to demonstrate the flight engine at an altitude of 30 kms.



Giving an update on Agni-V missile, he said all the rocket rotors, first stage, second stage and third stage have been developed. "We will ground test it," he said adding the software and hardware essential for control of guidance for a long-range missile is being developed.



"We expect that by end of this year we will have the first flight of Agni-V," he said.



Talking about the Fifth Generation fighter Aircraft programme, Saraswat said DRDO's six laboratories were part of the programme and involved in bringing new technology in the field of avionics, test and evaluation, material composite.HAL and DRDO would benefit from the programme, he said.



Prahlad, DRDO Chief Controller, said as per the global norm in joint venture, the 'background IP' is held with the respective countries, while the foreground IP (developed during the joint venture) will be shared between both, and given to others with mutual consent.



On the Arjun programme, he said MBT Arjun is already under production with the first order of 124 tanks followed by another order of 124 tanks. Another variant of the MBT Mark two was expected to go into production by early 2014.India had all relevant technologies to build an aircraft, which were comparable to international standards, he said.



"All the elements of aerospace are today within our grip," he said, be it the range of aircraft, the testing range and capabilities to integrate all weapons and sensors on any of the aircraft.



Saraswat said the Arihant programme is on schedule.Replying to a question on removal of nine entities from the entity list of the US, he said he welcomed the move but said much would depend on the licensing policy of the US with regard to dual use technologies where American laws were very stringent.



The move is also expected to accelerate the R and D programme with US while India has already identified 30 programmes with Washington.



Talking about expected defence budgetary expectations, Saraswat, he said last year it was Rs 9000 crore and this year it was expected to be around Rs 9000 to 12,000 crore

Quote:Bangalore, Feb 11, (PTI):

India did not believe in space wars but had all the technology required to integrate systems to defend its satellites, V K Saraswat, Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister, said on Friday.

"Our country does not have a policy to attack anybody in space. We don't believe in it. But as part of the Ballistic Missile Defence Programme, we have all the technology elements which are required to integrate a system through which we can defend our satellites or take care of future requirements."



As a country, "we do not believe in space wars", he said in response to a query whether India had anti-satellite weapon capabilities.



India did not have a formal anti-satellite weapon policy of attacking satellites in space, but was well geared in case of any eventuality, he told reporters here.



Giving updates on the various defence programmes, he said the 'Nirbhay' project, relating to a subsonic medium range cruise missile, is undergoing integration and the first flight trial is expected early next year.



Discussing the Hypersonic cruise missile, he said it was one of the most complex technologies under development with only two countries -- US and Australia -- having done it so far. He said the engine for the missile had undergone a test of 20-second duration on the ground and had performed "reasonably well".



He expected that in early next year the flight test of Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle can be conducted in which they would be able to demonstrate the flight engine at an altitude of 30 kms.



Giving an update on Agni-V missile, he said all the rocket rotors, first stage, second stage and third stage have been developed. "We will ground test it," he said adding the software and hardware essential for control of guidance for a long-range missile is being developed.



"We expect that by end of this year we will have the first flight of Agni-V," he said.



Talking about the Fifth Generation fighter Aircraft programme, Saraswat said DRDO's six laboratories were part of the programme and involved in bringing new technology in the field of avionics, test and evaluation, material composite.HAL and DRDO would benefit from the programme, he said.



Prahlad, DRDO Chief Controller, said as per the global norm in joint venture, the 'background IP' is held with the respective countries, while the foreground IP (developed during the joint venture) will be shared between both, and given to others with mutual consent.



On the Arjun programme, he said MBT Arjun is already under production with the first order of 124 tanks followed by another order of 124 tanks. Another variant of the MBT Mark two was expected to go into production by early 2014.India had all relevant technologies to build an aircraft, which were comparable to international standards, he said.



"All the elements of aerospace are today within our grip," he said, be it the range of aircraft, the testing range and capabilities to integrate all weapons and sensors on any of the aircraft.



Saraswat said the Arihant programme is on schedule.Replying to a question on removal of nine entities from the entity list of the US, he said he welcomed the move but said much would depend on the licensing policy of the US with regard to dual use technologies where American laws were very stringent.



The move is also expected to accelerate the R and D programme with US while India has already identified 30 programmes with Washington.



Talking about expected defence budgetary expectations, Saraswat, he said last year it was Rs 9000 crore and this year it was expected to be around Rs 9000 to 12,000 crore

Quote:[url="http://www.ndtv.com/search?q=Pallav+Bagla"]Pallav Bagla[/url], Updated: July 05, 2011

New Delhi: The government, late on Monday night, announced a forward looking and new data sharing policy for India's Remote Sensing satellites.



The new policy effectively breaks the monopoly that Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had on the remote sensing sector. The policy makes it clear that now agencies other than ISRO can also be 'nodal agencies' for remote sensing.



It is clear that the immediate beneficiary will be the military, but it also leaves a door open for private agencies to own remote sensing satellites soon, if they desired.



In another dramatic change, all remote sensing imagery and data up to one meter resolution will be made freely available, a quantum jump from the past. However, release of data less than one meter in resolution will still be controlled.[color="#0000FF"]<< Arun_S: First official confirmation of Indian sats collecting sub meter resolution images. When TES was launched many years ago, I had estimated the resolution of that first gen EOS to be about 0.7 m. >>[/color][color="#0000FF"] [/color]This would very much ease infrastructure development in urban areas - telecom, roads and housing sector could benefit greatly.



The old 2001 policy mandated that ISRO could release only data up to 5.8 meter resolution. A Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report had found that almost 80 per cent of images of ISRO were idling. All other better resolution data was strictly controlled by the government.

[color="#000080"]

There had been a huge clamour for the ten-year-old policy to be revised when ISRO failed to locate the missing helicopter that killed the Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu. [/color]



NDTV had stridently voiced that ISRO, which owns the world's largest constellation of 10 remote sensing satellites in the world, had literally turned them into White Elephants in space as data was not being shared with users. Now the long felt need for increased transparency from ISRO is being met one step at a time.

1. The GSAT carries about 900 kg fuel for orbit raising and station keeping.
2. Given that this is a stretched PSLV with stretched XL strap on booster for higher payload impulse, it inserts the GSAT to 21,000 Km altitude instead of 36k Km, (only marginally less efficient insertion altitude) , and lets the LAM do the rest
3. Also note that the small station keeping thrusters ( 10 and 22 N thrust) are bi-propellant type (and not mono-propellent type used many years ago), the ISP is much better.

Quote:in its nineteenth flight, launches India's communication satellite GSAT-12 from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR, Sriharikota, India. PSLV-C17 measuring 44.5 m height, with a lift off weight of 320 tonnes has four stages of solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. In its XL Version, PSLV-XL uses six extended solid strap-on motors wherein each strap-on carries 12 tonnes of solid propellant. This is a second time such a configuration is being flown, earlier one being the PSLV-C11/Chandrayaan-I mission.



Salient feature of PSLV-C17/GSAT-12 Mission:

• For the first time, use of indigenously designed and developed On-Board computer (OBC) with Vikram 1601 processor in both primary and redundant chains of the vehicle. The OBC performs the functions of Navigation, Guidance and Control processing for the vehicle.
• Use of extended solid strap-on configuration

Note that Kalpana was also inserted in GTO. Standard PSLV's payload limit is of about 1050 Kg. The PSLV-XL is more capable with its larger strapons and also CIP improvements. -XL Was used for Chandrayaan. Now for the first time we have data to quantify its performance improvement versus standard configuration. An improvement from 1050 Kg to about 1350 Kg (correcting for lower insertion apogee).

Quote:May 25, 2011

GSAT- 8 Satellite Placed in Geosynchronous Orbit

India's advanced communication satellite, GSAT-8, launched on May 21, 2011 has reached Geosynchronous orbit with an orbital period of 23 hours 45 minutes. The satellite's orbit has a perigee of 35,543 km, apogee of 35,770 km and an orbital inclination of 0.04 deg with respect to the equatorial plane. The solar arrays on both sides of the satellite have been deployed and they are tracking the Sun and generating electrical power. These solar arrays are designed to generate 6,240 W of electrical power. Two large dual grid Ku-band antennae have been opened and are pointing towards the Earth.



Today, the satellite has been put into the final orbital configuration pointing towards the Earth continuously. GSAT-8 is presently located at 47 deg East longitude and is being moved towards its final orbital position of 55 deg East where it will be co-located with INSAT-3E satellite.



In Orbit Testing (IOT) of 24 Ku-band transponders of GSAT-8 is scheduled to begin on June 1, 2011 and the satellite is expected to be ready for service in about a month. Testing of the GAGAN navigational payload will be conducted from the new Navigation Control Centre at Kundanahalli near Bangalore.