THE EXPLOSION of an Indian space rocket is likely to hit the country’s efforts to push further into the global market for launching commercial satellites, experts warned yesterday.
The unmanned Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) blew up live on television on Saturday (December 25) less than one minute after launch, at the start of a mission to put a communications satellite into orbit.
The accident was the second setback for India this year following the crash in April of a rocket that was meant to showcase domestically built booster technology, from the same site in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Scientists at the Indian space project began their search into the cause of the latest failure yesterday.
“Teams are looking at the data to find out the reason for what happened,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spokesman S Satish said. “A failure analysis committee is likely to be constituted in the next one or two days.”
The GSLV veered from its intended flight path and was intentionally blown up 47 seconds after take-off at a height of about eight kilometres (five miles) over the Bay of Bengal.
Experts called on the ISRO to go back to drawing board with the Rs1.75bn ($39m/£25.26m) GSLV before attempting to offer the rocket as a platform for international satellite launches.
They also warned that India’s ambitions to send its first manned space flight in 2016 were under threat.
“Saturday’s failure will certainly produce delays,” space scientist MN Vahia told the Times of India.
