Double fault to hurt India

NEW DELHI: A day after India’s defence preparedness suffered a setback with the failure of the Agni-III intermediate range missile, the country’s space programme too received a jolt as the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F02) carrying the Insat-4C communication satellite on Monday veered from its projected path and came crashing down soon after its blast-off from the Shriharikota range.

The twin disasters cast a pall of gloom over the scientific community, and are certain to delay the country’s progress in the two crucial areas. ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, while admitting the failure of the GSLV mission, said that things had gone wrong in the stage of separation (of the booster from the launch vehicle). “We have to analyse the data and figure out why it went wrong,” he said.

The launch vehicle was carrying the 2168 kg Insat-4C, the latest in the Indian remote-sensing satellite series, aimed at augmenting the direct-to-home (DTH) television services, facilitating video picture transmission, digital satellite news-gathering and providing VSAT connectivity to the National Informatics Centre. Soon after the failure of the mission, ISRO officials put the entire system on ‘emergency condition.’

The Insat-4C launch debacle came a day after the Agni-III nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range up to 3,500km, failed to hit its target off the coast of Orissa and crashed into the sea. Insat-4C was the heaviest in its class. This was the first launch of a GSLV from the Rs 350-crore sophisticated launch pad, commissioned in May ‘05.