India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Society Military and Strategic Issues
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**After the failure of Agni III missile, India’s space programme received a major setback on Monday when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F02) carrying the INSAT 4C communication satellite veered from its projected path and came crashing down.
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ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, admitting the failure of the mission, said, “things have gone wrong in the stage of separation (of the booster from the launch vehicle). We have to analyse the data why it went wrong”.

The launch vehicle, carrying the 2168kg satellite to boost to Direct-to-Home television service and digital news gathering, deviated from its chartered path soon after the lift-off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 1738 hours and disintegrated into a ball of fire.

Soon after the failure of the mission, ISRO officials put the entire system on “emergency condition”.

The jubilation among the scientists at the control station of the Space Centre immediately after the launch soon turned into despair as the launch vehicle hurtled down into the Bay of Bengal.

**The INSAT-42 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 splashed into the sea. **

The INSAT-4C satellite was the heaviest in its class. This was the first launch of GSLV from the Rs 350-crore sophisticated launch pad, commissioned in May 2005.

The 49-metre-tall, 414 tonne GSLV was a three-stage vehicle. The first stage, GS1, comprised a core motor with 138 tonne of solid propellants and four strap-on motors, each with 42 tonnes of hypergolic liquid propellant.

The second stage had 39 tonne of the same hypergolic liquid propellant. The third (GS3) was a cryogenic stage with 12.6 tonne of Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2).

The INSAT 4C, the second satellite in the INSAT 4 series, was aimed at strengthening video picture transmission besides providing space for National Informatics Centre’s VSAT connectivity. The lifespan of the satellite was expected to be 10 years.

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India’s space rocket disintegrates after blast-off**
(AFP)

10 July 2006

BANGALORE -A rocket carrying India’s heaviest satellite disintegrated in a ball of smoke and flame seconds after lift-off on Monday, dealing a crippling blow to the country’s ambitious space programme.

The 49-metre (161-foot) rocket was launched at 1205 GMT from an island off the coast of the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, but veered off course and disintegrated about 30 seconds later, live television pictures showed.

“A mishap happened in the first stage of the separation and it will be some time before we know what went wrong,” Madhavan Nair, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission chief, told reporters at the launch site.

“We have to analyse the sequence of events to see what happened.”

The rocket carried a 2,168-kilogram (2.4 ton) satellite to be placed in stationary space orbit at 36,000 kilometres (22,320 miles), designed for a mission life of 10 years and meant to boost television services.

It was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in the Bay of Bengal.

A similar version of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle successfully placed a satellite in orbit in 2004.

On Sunday, the maiden test of India’s Agni-III missile, which defence sources say has a range of 4,000 kilometres (2,480 miles), developed problems after a successful take-off Sunday from a site off India’s east coast.

“While it would be too early to hazard a guess as to what went wrong, it would seem that a design defect prevented the second stage from separating,” the official said of the Agni, or Fire, missile.

The Agni-III has two solid-fuelled stages and has an overall diameter of 1.8 metres (six feet).

Scientists of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said more trials of the Agni-III missile would be conducted in the coming months.

Monday’s ill-fated launch of the three-stage rocket, which includes Russian-made cryogenic control systems with locally-built equipment, was an attempt to increase its capacity beyond four tons.

K.R. Sridhara Murthi, executive director of Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Department of Space, said on Sunday his outfit wanted “one or more successful launch of the rocket” before offering launch services.

“Only then we can go in for more vigorous marketing,” Murthi told AFP of India’s ambition to capture part of the global launch market.

India has plans to invest 542 million dollars to handle up to four launch services for satellites a year.

India has nine other communication satellites with a total of 175 transponders in operation, making it the largest domestic communication satellite system in the Asia-Pacific and the world’s biggest civilian cluster of remote-sensing satellites.

The country says its space program is aimed at developing practical technology. It plans to send a probe to the moon in two or three years.

India first tried to launch a satellite-capable rocket on March 24, 1987. The attempt failed.

A second attempt ended with the payload falling into the Bay of Bengal on July 13, 1988, when the vehicle became unstable and broke up soon after release of the booster rockets.

A launch on May 20, 1992 placed a satellite in orbit, but lower than planned, resulting in reduced performance.

-Divali has arrived a bit early this year, brilliant fireshowers of mig 21s, mirages, Agni and now a GSLV:D

-350 crore should be spent on the poor people dying of hunger

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

For those who might be concerned why I have not posted the source of these news.I am not allowed to post a URL before 25 posts.This has been taken from HinduTimes and KhaleejTimes:)

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Nicely said bro.

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

ANTRIX corp is a commercial arm of ISRO. That money might have been lost but it is being made somewhere else also by ISRO.
http://www.blonnet.com/catalyst/2004/04/08/stories/2004040800010100.htm

After growing from Rs 40 crore to Rs 300 crore in just four years, ISRO arm Antrix is set to take off in the space technology market. Expansion of the market reach by taking the INSAT service beyond India is just one of its many plans.

Every failure is step towards perfection…indians dont have to worry too much though.

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

When have the Stupid Hindustanis ever perfected anything?

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Thx for the link ssingh, very informative.I am not a economics expert myself so I may not be able to discuss ISRO's economical progress over a few years.I know ISRO has been around since the 1970s.

I guess you can get away by saying every failure is a step forward.Failure is okay once in a while but not over and over.In a war situation if you want to send a missile or spy satellite there is no room for a failure and there is no second chance.You have to be perfect or you may loose.Imagine the missile goes up and after 40 seconds it comes back at you, like in the roadrunner show cartoons:)

Indian media covers up and edits alot of stuff, it is biased that is why Indians do not have to worry about much because they do not know the full story or right side of the story.

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

^ indian space program is not marred by recurrent failures. there have been successes. Even a country like US has undergone a lot of failures.

and you are right that indian media covers up. To be precise they hype the situation a lot. But it is not entirely true also. If that was the case, then these two"successive" failures wouldn't have been reported

GS ChatRoom
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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Agni-III failure shows incompetence: Samar

By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir

ISLAMABAD: Agni-III failure is a great setback to the Indian missile programme and New Delhi will have to revert to the drawing board for developing the missile of the class that’s test was aborted on Sunday.

Pakistan’s eminent scientists and Chairman National Engineering and Science Commission (Nescom) Dr Samar Mubarikmund told The News here on Sunday that the circumstances being narrated by the** Indians for the failure of their missile test are not acceptable because the Indian missile met a disaster as it could not attain the altitude where the first stage is over or the second is even ignited.**

When his attention was drawn to the Indian explanation for the failure of the test that the missile attained the height of 12 kilometres and it was in the second stage when it perished, Dr Samar disputed the claim and said that with the range of 3,500 km, the missile had to go above about 800-900 kms while the second stage had to be ignited at 28 to 30 kms. If the missile was fallen from the height of 12 km, it establishes that either it’s motor rocket, the basics of the missile proved failure or the guidance and control system was faulty. In both the probabilities, Indian technology has been exposed in clumsy manners.

Responding to a question about the Indian attribution of ‘design failure’, Dr Samar said it means that Indians will have to go back to the drawing stage and if they do not borrow “something” from abroad, they will take another two to three years to once again reach the stage where they were just before the launch on Sunday.

It is interesting to watch that Indian missile programme that was initiated by French and US assistance and later New Delhi also borrowed Russian technical support has been facing tragedies from the beginning.

Israel is actively collaborating with Indians who have mastered in the technology but somehow Indians have miserably failed in clicking in it. It was India’s Agni’s third successive failure and in each case it was medium or long range. Agni is Hindi-Sanskrit word means ‘fire’.

With the repeat of Agni failure now India is left with tested ‘Pirthavi’ missiles that has the range of 150 to 200 km. Indians have been claiming that they have started the serial production of Pirthavi but incidentally on January 26 last year on the Indian Republic day, Indians attempted to test fire the Pirthavi to celebrate the day but the missile was burst into pieces at the launching venue and it spread fire there. Agni-I was launched for the range of 900 km but it landed 200 km short of the target while the Agni-II fell half the way.

Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh soon after assuming the office claimed that India was not interested in carrying out long-range missile test because it enjoys good relations with Pakistan and China both. “In fact he attained high moral ground for his country just to provide cover to constant failures of his country’s scientists engaged in developing long-range missiles and they were hesitating from testing the missile,” the sources said.

Pakistan is still maintaining its superiority in missile technology in whole South Asia as it has successfully tested number of missiles with various ranges including Shaheen-II that has the range of the 2,500 km with all remarkably accurate parameters.

These parameters proved in the presence of international neutral empires when the missile hit the target to extent of centimetres accuracy in the Indian Ocean, the sources reminded.

It is expected that Pakistan would carry out some more tests this year and may be with extended range of that already tested. Pakistani scientists indigenously develop Pakistan’s missiles, the sources said.

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Re: India's INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

TECHNOLOGY-INDIA:

Exposed by Dud Missile, Space Vehicle Crash
Praful Bidwai 

                                                         **NEW DELHI, Jul 11 (IPS) - The failure in rapid succession, this week, of a satellite launcher and a new ballistic missile have shown up the technological and budgetary difficulties faced by India's space establishment -- civilian and military. **

Hours after the 50 million US dollar Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with a communications satellite on board was ordered to self-destruct, as it veered off course soon after lift-off on Monday, authorities at the civilian Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said one of its four strap-on rocket motors had failed.

Like the GSLV, a new intermediate-range ballistic missile ‘Agni III' that was launched by the secretive Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO), failed soon after lift-off on Sunday and *crashed into the Bay of Bengal, less than 1,000 km away from the launch site. *

The failure of the Agni III was in some ways more serious because it exposed the political limitations of India's attempts, despite its ambitions, to pursue a military capability which is truly independent of the United States' strategic calculations.

The surface-to-surface ballistic missile, designed to have a range of 3,500 km, took off in a "fairly smooth" manner at the designated hour. But "a series of mishaps" occurred in its later flight-path.

The Agni-III was originally meant to be tested in 2003-04. However, the test was postponed owing to technological snags. After their rectification, said reports, the missile's test-flights were put off twice largely for "political reasons", so as not to annoy the U.S.

Earlier this year, India decided to postpone the missile test out of fear that a test could hamper U.S. Congressional ratification of the India-U.S. nuclear cooperation deal. Publicly, the Indian defence minister cited "self-imposed restraint" to justify the postponement.

However, last month, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military, visited India and declared that "I do not see it (a test) as destabilising" or upsetting the regional "military balance" since "other countries in this region" (read, Pakistan) have also tested missiles.

Following this "facilitation" or clearance, and after indications of favourable votes in U.S. Congressional committees on the nuclear deal, India's stand changed. A week later, the DRDO announced it was ready to launch Agni-III.

This is the ninth missile in the Agni series (named after the Sanskrit word for "fire") to have been tested. The first was tested in May 1989. The last test (Agni-II) took place in August 2004.

** Unlike major powers like the U.S., Russia or China, which test the same missile 10 to 20 times before announcing that it is fully developed, India considers only three or four test-flights to be enough for both producing and inducting new missiles. (pure hindu baniya style) **

This is not first time that the test of an Agni series missile has failed. I*n the past, some tests of the shorter range Agni-II (range 2000 km-plus) also proved unsuccessful. *

But what makes the Agni-III's failure significant is that unlike its shorter-range predecessors, it was a wholly new design, developed with the specific purpose of delivering a nuclear warhead.

** The Agni-I (range 700 to 800 km)** and Agni-II, were both products of India's space programme married to its Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), itself launched in 1983. Originally, their design used a satellite space-launching rocket (SLV-3) as the first stage, *on top of which was mounted the very-short range (150 to 250 km) liquid fuel-propelled Prithvi missile. *

The Agni-III's brand new design, in which both stages use solid propellants, was to enable it to carry a payload weighing up to 1.5 tonnes and deliver it to targets as far away as Beijing and Shanghai. At present, India lacks an effective nuclear deterrent vis-à-vis China, based on a delivery vehicle carrying a nuclear warhead. Agni-III was meant to fill the void.

The causes of the failure of the test-flight are not clear. Scientists at the DRDO, which designed and built the missile, have been quoted as saying that many new technologies were tried in the Agni-III, including rocket motors, "fault-tolerant" avionics and launch control and guidance systems. Some of these could have failed. Other reports attribute the mishap to problems with the propellant.

** "The DRDO isn't the world's most reliable weapons R&D agency,"*(THI INDOOS WILL DENY THIS) Admiral L. Ramdas, a former chief of staff of the Indian Navy told IPS. "The Indian armed services' experience with DRDO-made armaments has not been a happy one. **Their reliability is often extremely poor. We often used to joke that one had to pray they would somehow work in the battlefield." *

The agency has a budget of Rs 30 billion (670 million dollars), which is of the same order as the annual expenditure of the department of atomic energy which is responsible for India's civilian and military nuclear programmes.

This figure is extremely high "This fh for a poor country like India, with a low rank of 127 among 175 countries of the world in the United Nations Human Development Index," said Anil Chowdhary of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. "Yet the DRDO has delivered very little."

None of the three major projects assigned to the DRDO has been completed on time or without huge cost-overruns. These include the development of a Main Battle Tank (MBT), a nuclear power plant for a submarine, and an advanced Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), all involving expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars.

** The MBT project was launched in 1974. But the tank has failed to meet service requirement tests**. It is reportedly too heavy and undependable to be used in combat operations. The Indian army prefers imported Russian tanks over the indigenous MBTs and says it will use the MBTs for training, not operations.

** The nuclear submarine project, launched 31 years ago, is not yet finished despite the almost one billion dollars spent on it. The LCA project, launched in 1983, is still in the doldrums: the DRDO has failed to develop the right engine for it. Even with an imported engine, the plane is unlikely to enter service anytime soon. (CLASSIC DRDO STUFF)**

"The primary reason for these shocking instances of underperformance and inability is lack of public accountability and oversight of the DRDO," says M.V. Ramana, an independent technical expert attached to Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore. "The DRDO, like all of India's defence and nuclear service establishments, is not subject to normal processes of audit. It has used ‘security' as a smokescreen or shield and refused to be held to account," he adds.

The DRDO says it will try to rectify the faults in Agni-III. Whether or not and whenever that happens, India's missile development programme, with future plans to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 km or more, has suffered a major setback.

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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=20434 **

ISRO Search and Rescue Network Saves 30 Lives

**ISRO’s satellite-based search and rescue network has helped in saving 30 crew members of a Panama registered ship ‘Glory Moon’. The ship was drifting in the Sri Lankan waters after its communications and navigation systems were completely destroyed in a fire that occurred on board the ship on July 11, 2006. ISRO’s geostationary communication satellite, INSAT-3A, relayed the first distress signals transmitted by the distress beacon that was still functioning on board ‘Glory Moon’. The Indian Mission Control Centre (INMCC) of ISRO located at Bangalore, detected those distress signals and immediately alerted the Indian Coast Guard for Search and Rescue operations. Though the ship was in Sri Lankan waters, it was the initiative shown by INMCC, that resulted in the rescue of all the 30 crew members.

India is a member of the international COSPAS-SARSAT programme for providing distress alert and position location service through LEOSAR (Low Earth Orbit Search And Rescue) satellite system. Under this programme, India has established two Local User Terminals (LUTs), one at Lucknow and the other at Bangalore. The Indian Mission Control Centre (INMCC) is located at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bangalore. Besides, ISRO’s geostationary communication satellite, INSAT-3A, is specially equipped with a 406 MHz Search and Rescue payload that picks up and relays alert signals originating from the distress beacons of maritime, aviation and land users. INSAT GEOSAR Local User Terminal (GEO LUT) also established at ISTRAC, Bangalore is integrated with INMCC. The distress alerts detected at INMCC are passed on to Indian Coast Guard and Rescue Coordination Centres (RCC) at Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai. Since its establishment in 1991, INMCC has helped in saving more than 1,500 lives.

On July 11, when ISRO’s GSLV-Mk2 crashed into Bay of Bengal, silently, ISRO also saved 30 lives and that too from the waters of a foreign country. I guess thats what is called real success :slight_smile:

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Not that I care about India or its space program, but HAA HAAA… :hehe:

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Kid, I am waiting for your replies…
http://www.paklinks.com/gs/showthread.php?t=225946

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Chalo Bachai, I only reply to Indians to defend Pakistan and to make sure the Indians are reminded of what arrogant bunch of jerks they are. Nothing wrong with that.. Why should that get your panties in knot?

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

lol, ok thats fine, you do not want to reply, dont reply, we Indians do not use force. Anyways you are 4 times genetically “supperior” to me :halo: . Have a nice day.

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Re: India’s INSAT 4C satellite crashes follows Agni III missile

Yeah, you dont fight back! Atleast you Indians have a sense of humor. Actually, im superior to you ten fold, not 4.
Dont worry, I will bore of you people eventually, you are good for a laugh after all.
But so long as Indians are coming to our sites, and try to start talking crap, I will.. Im sorry. I would expect the same at any Indian site. At least some Pakistanis are mature enough to stand up for you guys, on Indian site, Indians all gang up on Pakistanis and you should hear some of the foul language they use. You should consider yourself lucky that people here dont indulge in such things.