April 16 : The first reaction of even a fairly informed intelligent Indian to the failure of Isro’s space mission could be that Rs 330 crores and 18 years of hard toil by scientists had got drowned in the Bay of Bengal, despite the “auspicious” hour chosen for the Thursday evening launch at Sriharikota.
Even sadder is that it happened to be India’s maiden space effort using an indigenously-developed cryogenic engine, trying to shake off our dependence on the Russians for this technology. On a personal note, it was also the first mission for Dr K. Radhakrishnan after he took charge as Isro’s chairman. While it is too soon to say why the mission failed and the GSLV-D3 rocket carried its precious payload of the advanced GSAT-4 communications satellite into the sea within five minutes after what appeared to be a perfect launch, there is a debate within the Isro community on whether the cryogenic engine responded to commands from the onboard computer to ignite. The rocket, said the dejected Isro chief, tumbled uncontrollably after behaving beautifully till the 293rd second after the launch at 4.27 pm, that is, when moving from the “burnout” of the second stage into the critical cryogenic stage. The cryogenic phase would have been the third and final stage in the flight of 1,022 seconds before the rocket could place the 2,218-kg communication satellite in its gyosynchronous transfer orbit 35,975 km from the earth. This did not materialise as the mission failed.
Dr Radhakrishnan has said his scientists will now work undeterred by this setback and try to launch another GSLV mission with an indigenously-built cryogenic engine within a year. Besides, a communications satellite named GSAT-5B will get into orbit in September 2010, and another GSAT-6 soon afterwards. Isro will try out both these missions using two Russian cryogenic engines that it has been holding in its kitty even before the Russians stopped supply because of American sanctions. During that difficult phase, when India was coming under increasing US pressure over its nuclear and missile capabilities (and with America reserving its warmth for Pakistan no matter what that country did to unsettle peace in the region), the reports of hundreds of Isro scientists working round-the-clock to develop an indigenous cryogenic engine had warmed many Indian hearts. For the media covering events at Sriharikota in the past several years, there were two standard questions at the Isro chief’s post-launch briefings — when would the cryogenic engine be ready, and when would an Indian spaceship land on the moon? While the moon mission appears to be doing well and Chandrayaan-2, with Russian collaboration, is due to land a rover on the lunar surface by the end of 2013, the experience with the cryogenic engine has now suffered a major setback with Thursday’s mission ending in the sea. Interestingly, Chandrayaan-2 is also scheduled to be lifted into space by a GSLV launch vehicle powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine. This is why it is even more important for our scientists to quickly assess the GSLV-D3’s performance so that corrective action can be taken well ahead of the promised moon mission. Success with cryogenic technology will catapult India into the elite space club that has just five members — the United States, Russia, China, the European Space Agency and Japan. And that is not just craving for an expensive decoration being denied by the superpowers: the cryogenic engine can in fact halve the cost of putting a satellite into orbit from the existing $20,000 per kg, besides providing greater thrust to the launch vehicle and enabling it carry larger satellite payloads into higher orbits. The ultimate beneficiary will be the ordinary Indian — who will be able to use far superior communication capabilities.
