Indian rocket crashes with 16 satellites on board
An Indian PSLV launch vehicle has crashed with a number of satellites on board. However, one mission was successfully carried out.
PSLV launch vehicle before launch
(Image: ISRO)
Failure for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO): The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket exploded during a flight into space. It was the second consecutive failure for the otherwise reliable rocket.
The four-stage PSLV launched on January 12 at 10:18 AM (local time) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre launch site in Sriharikota in southeastern India. It was supposed to transport 16 satellites into space.
Shortly after igniting the third stage, about six minutes after launch, the rocket began to tumble and eventually crashed. It likely reached a suborbital trajectory and fell into the Indian Ocean, wrote Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and space expert, on Bluesky. According to its statements, ISRO has launched an investigation.
On board were 16 satellites that were supposed to be deployed about 500 kilometers above the Earth, in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). Among them were the Indian Earth observation satellite EOS-N1, the British-Thai Earth observation satellite Theos-2, and an Indian satellite designed to test refueling in space. All but one mission were lost.
Success for Orbital Paradigm Mission
The Orbital Paradigm mission, however, was successful. The Spanish space startup has developed a capsule for re-entry, the Kestrel Initial Technology Demonstrator (KID). It presumably entered the atmosphere together with the upper stage of the rocket, Orbital Paradigm announced on LinkedIn.
The conditions were significantly harsher than what KID was designed for, the company explained: "The re-entry was more difficult than planned, but KID withstood it."
The PSLV is considered a fairly reliable rocket. However, this was the second consecutive failure; the previous mission in May last year also failed due to a third-stage malfunction.
Videos by heise
ISRO plans to launch the next mission of the manned spaceflight program Gaganyaan (Sanskrit for "Sky Vehicle") shortly. However, the Gaganyaan space shuttle will not be launched by the PSLV, but by the Human-rated version of Launch Vehicle Mark 3 (HLVM3) launch vehicle. On board will be the female humanoid robot Vyommitra.
(wpl)
