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Indian Satellite Lost in Launch Explosion

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the little-late-for-fireworks dept.

An anonymous reader writes "BBC News is reporting that the recent communications satellite launch in India has met with disaster. The satellite, designed to enhance India's telephone and communications network, was lost when the rocket carrying it veered off course and exploded. This is the second disappointment in recent launch attempts, coming just one day after the failed long-range ballistic missile test launch."

16 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Indian Astronauts by Durrok · · Score: 5, Funny

    Monday's flight was also supposed to set the stage for an Indian mission to the Moon.

    Something tells me there may be a lack of volunteers for this now...

    --
    I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
    1. Re:Indian Astronauts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The moon mission (chandrayan) is going to be an unmanned one. And yes, it appears that NASA and ESA are indeed in talks to 'outsource' some of their moon probes to that mission.

  2. Dang! by Morky · · Score: 5, Funny

    Rockets is hard!

  3. This just in by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Building rockets is as hard as rocket science.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  4. It isn't as easy as it looks... by Erwos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not surprised. It sounds easy to launch a rocket (hell, we've been doing it since forever, right?), yet in the light of this failure, North Korea's blown ICBM launch, and SpaceX's spectacular failure a while back, perhaps the difficulty of such things needs to be reassessed in the minds of the average Slashdot reader.

    Certainly, the ESA and NASA have something to be proud of when they actually manage to get stuff into orbit :).

    -Erwos

    --
    Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
    1. Re:It isn't as easy as it looks... by EvanED · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What you say is true. Actually, last night I arrived back home after spending about 3 weeks at Norway's Andoya Rocket Range where a little over a week ago there was the launch of a sounding rocket I helped build the payload for as a project at college. Our launch was in conjunction with another launch from actual scientists in Europe called HotPay1. The HotPay launch came 26 minutes after ours. Unfortunately, 7 to 8 seconds into flight either the payload broke off the motor or the motor broke in half. (As of last I heard, they weren't sure what happened.) So these things still do NOT always go well.

      And that was just a single stage sounding rocket too; not even in the same category as an orbital flight.

      P.S. I'd have started this post with "you might even say 'it IS rocket science" but another poster took that joke already...

  5. Props to India for trying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a lot of respect for countries which have a space program and attempt to launch rockets into space, whether they succeed or not.

  6. Re:well (Wrong) by ZSpade · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Outsourced the shuttle to a private company
    Nasa is looking to outsource even more!
    The article title made me laugh in light of your comment.

    Like almost every other branch of the government, NASA does outsource. They contract out the building of almost any sort of vehicle out to private companies who are all competing for it.

    Now if you think I'm just picking apart your statement for fun, you're only half right, look at this:

    In light of this article, scary.

    --
    Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
  7. It's ok by me by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 5, Funny

    It was a communications satellite, right? Anything that limits the possibility of my tech support calls getting routed to India is just fine by me.

  8. GSLV exploded... by dracken · · Score: 5, Informative

    The GSLV had 2 successful launches before, launching the GSAT experimental satellite and the EDUSAT educational satellite. India's moon mission is unmanned and will use the PSLV rocket which has had six successful launches so far.

  9. Failure but impressive record by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even though this launch failed, I would think the Indian Space Research OPrganizaiton is doing a tremendous job. Given their meagre budget ($700 million ISRO Wiki ) , their past record is definitely impressive . Most of their launches so far have been in polar orbits (remote sensing and spy satellites). They used ESA's Ariane rockets till yesterday for their geostationary communication satellite requirements.

  10. Re:well by dracken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe you should read this.

    "India's six remote-sensing satellites - the largest such constellation in the world. These monitor the country's land and coastal waters so that scientists can advise rural communities on the location of aquifers and where to find watercourses, suggest to fishermen when to set sail for the best catch, and warn coastal communities of imminent storms (see "Eyes in the sky"). India's seven communication satellites, the biggest civilian system in the Asia-Pacific region, now reach some of the remotest corners of the country, providing television coverage to 90 per cent of the population. The system is also being used to extend remote healthcare services and education to the rural poor."

    Or this about PSLV

    "It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into sun synchronous orbits, a service that was, until the advent of the PSLV, commercially viable only from Russia"

  11. In other news... by lelitsch · · Score: 5, Funny

    There was a small, secret "hey, our new invisible space-based laser has worked three times in a row now" party at Vandenberg AFB.

  12. Mumbai by bobbo69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Offtopic I know, but just wanted to say my thoughts are with India after the bombings today. Fucking terrorists :(

  13. Re:well by rts008 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Very good reply! Well done.
    This is what keeps me coming back to /. when I decide to give up on it due to the inane, kneejerk, blatant fanboy, etc. posts that are getting more numerous all the time.

    Your post was:
    concise, informative, not insulting/derogatory, and directly addressed the point.
    I heartily give you A+ since I have no mod points to give. :)

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    Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
  14. it dint just explode.. by vasanth · · Score: 5, Informative

    the satellite dint just explode but was made to explode when its path deviate from the intended one... thats a big difference.. http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=398107 "Following this, the vehicle deviated to about 10 degrees, leading to the mission control giving the 'destruct command'."