Close X
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
ADVT 
India

Indian Space Agency's GSLV Rocket Successfully Launches After 40 Minute Delay

Darpan News Desk IANS, 08 Sep, 2016 12:59 PM
    India successfully launched its INSAT-3DR advanced weather satellite in copy-book style on Thursday evening using its heavy geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-F05) rocket.
     
    Around 17 minutes after lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here at 4.50 p.m., the GSLV rocket slung the 2,211 kg satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), from where it would be guided to its final geostationary orbit. The launch was delayed by 40 minutes as the fuelling of the third stage of the rocket took longer than expected.
     
    With the launch of INSAT-3DR, the Indian space agency has successfully launched three satellites weighing over two tonnes of the six satellites weighing over two tonnes it had flown in a GSLV rocket.
     
    The successful flight of the GSLV rocket on Thursday gives the Indian space programme a much-needed boost as getting the third stage cryogenic engine right is important for its future space programmes as well as for commercial launches.
     
    Indian space scientists have spent around two decades and around Rs 500 crore ($75 million)in conceiving and developing the cryogenic technology.
     
    Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists at the mission control centre were visibly happy. They slapped each other on the back and hugged each other once the rocket ejected the satellite, which can also aid in search and rescue (SAR) missions, into its intended orbit.
     
    "Today we reached one more landmark, successfully putting the weather monitoring satellite into orbit," ISRO's Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar said.
     
     
    According to ISRO, the satellite incorporates technological improvements like: (a) imaging in middle infrared band to provide nighttime pictures of low clouds and fog, (b) imaging in two thermal infrared bands for better estimating sea surface temperature and (c) higher spatial resolution in the visible and thermal infrared bands.
     
    Also on board the INSAT-3DR is a satellite-aided search and rescue transponder that operates at 406.05 MHz to pick up and relay signals from distress beacons of maritime, aviation and land based users to the Indian Mission Control Centre located at Bengaluru.
     
    According to ISRO, the major users of this technology in India are the defence services, the Coast Guard, the Airports Authority of India, the Directorate General of Shipping and fishermen.
     
    The Indian alert service region includes a large part of the Indian Ocean region covering India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
     
    The INSAT-3DR also carries a data relay transponder (DRT) for receiving meteorological, hydrological and oceanographic data from remote uninhabited locations in the coverage area from platforms like automatic weather stations, automatic rain gauges and agro met stations.
     
    The satellite's life expectancy is 10 years.
     
    The GSLV is a three stage rocket. The first stage is fired by solid fuel and its four strap-on motors by liquid fuel. The second powered by liquid fuel and the third is the ISRO-developed cryogenic engine that is more efficient as it provides more thrust for every kilogram of propellant burnt.
     
    ISRO is perfecting the crucial cryogenic engine technology to save precious foreign exchange by launching heavier satellites on its own.
     
    ISRO currently relies on the European Space Agency's Ariane rocket to launch its heavy communication satellites.
     
    India pays around Rs 500 crore ($75 million) as the launch fee for sending up a 3.5 tonne communication satellite. The satellite cost is separate.
     
    ISRO can now launch satellites weighing around 2-2.5 tonnes till such time it readies an advanced GSLV variant -- GSLV-Mark III -- that can lug satellites weighing around four tonnes.
     
    The year-end is expected to see the launch from here of the GSLV-Mk-III with the GSAT-19 communication satellite weighing around 3.2 tonnes -- the heaviest to be lifted by an Indian rocket.
     
     
    CHINA FAILS TO PUT A HIGH-TECH SATELLITE INTO ORBIT: REPORT
     
    In a rare setback, China today failed to put one of the most advanced satellites into orbit resulting in the loss of the satellite, a media report said.
     
     
    A Long March 4C rocket blasted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi but aihangtian.com, a website run by Chinese professional astronautic experts and space enthusiasts, said it failed to insert its payload, the Gaofen-10 satellite into its designated orbit, in what would be the first such failure since 2013.
     
    There is no official announcement about it so far.
     
    The police department of neighbouring Shaanxi province also posted photos on its social media account of a search and recovery mission for debris, in which the launch was dubbed a "failure", the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
     
    While the entry was later removed from Weibo, it posted the debris of the rocket posted by the police.
     
    The rocket was put into orbit the Gaofen satellite which is part of series designed to give China a global network of earth observation satellites with high-definition, all-weather, 24-hour intelligence gathering capabilities for military and civilian users by 2020.
     
    The network is designed to be able to monitor any spot on earth.
     
    While China has been launching numerous satellites including the quantum communication satellite which provides hack-proof communication and prevent wiretapping and intercepts.
     
    This is first time Chinese rocket failed since 2013, the post said.
     
    In December 2013, the launch of an earth observation satellite jointly built by China and Brazil aboard a Long March rocket failed because of a rocket malfunction.
     
    Nonetheless, the Long March series is claimed by the Chinese government to be the world's safest rocket, with nearly 20 launches per year in recent years and a success rate of more than 96 per cent, the Post report said.

    MORE India ARTICLES

    Modi To Host Lunch For Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge

    This is their first visit to India.

    Modi To Host Lunch For Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge

    Arvind Kejriwal, AAP Leaders Get Bail In Arun Jaitley Defamation Case

    Arvind Kejriwal, AAP Leaders Get Bail In Arun Jaitley Defamation Case
    A court here on Thursday granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five other AAP leaders in a criminal defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against them in the wake of the DDCA controversy.

    Arvind Kejriwal, AAP Leaders Get Bail In Arun Jaitley Defamation Case

    Modi Attacks Mamata On Corruption, Ridicules Congress-left Alliance

    Modi Attacks Mamata On Corruption, Ridicules Congress-left Alliance
    Terming the Kolkata flyover collapse tragedy an "act of fraud", Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday made corruption the centre-piece of his no-holds-barred attack against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

    Modi Attacks Mamata On Corruption, Ridicules Congress-left Alliance

    Don't Politicise Issue Of Guidelines To Curb Sikh-centric Jokes: Supreme Court

    Don't Politicise Issue Of Guidelines To Curb Sikh-centric Jokes: Supreme Court
    The Supreme Court counselled the various parties before it seeking the guidelines for curbing racial comments and jokes on Sikhs and a clampdown on websites carrying Sikh-centric jokes not to fight among themselves and politicise the issue

    Don't Politicise Issue Of Guidelines To Curb Sikh-centric Jokes: Supreme Court

    Terror Alert In Punjab On Pakistani Terrorists

    Terror Alert In Punjab On Pakistani Terrorists
    Security agencies have issued a terror alert on the alleged movement of three suspected Pakistani terrorists from Jammu and Kashmir towards Delhi.

    Terror Alert In Punjab On Pakistani Terrorists

    Clear Your Stand On Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal: Badal Asks Kejriwal

    Clear Your Stand On Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal: Badal Asks Kejriwal
    Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party is trying to emerge as a major force in the next Punjab assembly polls likely to be held in February 2017, had earlier said Punjab should not allow the construction of the SYL canal.

    Clear Your Stand On Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal: Badal Asks Kejriwal