ISRO to appoint Analysis Committee to probe GSLV-F02 failure

Bangalore, July 11 (UNI) Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will form a Failure Analysis Committee (FAC) to probe the failure of the fourth GSLV flight--GSLV-F02, which disintegrated 60 seconds after takes off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota yesterday following malfunctioning of one of the four strap-on first stage motors.

An ISRO Spokesman told UNI here today that the composition of the FAC, to be constituted in a few days, was being worked out and it would be announced soon.

ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair was still in Sriharikota discussing with other senior ISRO officials and scientists the reasons for the failure. He would leave for New Delhi later tonight.

The Committee would probe into the reasons for the failure after it received the analysis of space scientists on the telemetry and other data of the abortive mission. It would take some time before the exact causes of the failure could be ascertained so that suitable modifications could be made in the next flight.

Besides telemetry data, the scientists would also read frame by frame the launch sequence as the blast off had been captured by a high speed camera, he added.

Terming yesterday's failure as a rare phenomenon, the Spokesman said every effort would be made to resume GSLV flights within a year.

A sudden drop in pressure in one of the four strap-on motors in the first stage, had led to the failure of GSLV-F02, which was to hurl into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit the 2,168 kg INSAT-4C, the heaviest communication satellite to be launched from the Indian Spaceport.

Stating that the error must have occurred after the blast off, he said if there had been any problem before the take off, the flight would have been aborted as the computers would have read the anomaly. All the four strap-ons had performed normally at take off but subsequently one of them could not generate enough thrust, resulting in the rocket steering away from the intended path.

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