Indian Launch Vehicle Explodes After Lift-Off

Indian communications satellite GSAT-5P was destroyed by the explosion of its launch vehicle, the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle. The GSLV malfunctioned while still in its first phase of its Christmas launch, after less than a minute of flight. YouTube has a video of the explosion, taken from TV9 Kannada.

Comments

Video in English

[recoiledsnake]

A much better video in English here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH-0OH0MI2Y

Re:Video in English

[Hynee]

So it looks like the GSLV yawed beyond limits, upper stages (I think stage 3 plus payload) broke off (0:34 on video), then stage 1+2 kept going, initially with decreased yaw (it got knocked back on course upon stage 3 separation), but then increasing yaw until 0:45 when stage 2 broke away from stage 1 and the strap-ons broke off too.
The orange cloud at 0:45 should be the hypergolics in the strap-on boosters, I believe that's what caused the orange cloud in the Challenger disaster.
According to the wiki article on the GSLV's predecessor the first stage injects chemicals (aqueous strontium perchlorate solution) into the nozzle to control yaw. I wonder if this has been problematic in the past?

Your ignorance is astounding.

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there's a pretty significant difference between the rockets used to put artificial satellites in orbit and the Space Shuttle, right?

We've been putting artificial satellites into orbit for over 50 years now. While it's complex, it isn't particularly difficult to do. There's a large base of accumulated knowledge on the subject, and these days it can generally be done flawlessly by many different nations and space programs.

The Space Shuttle, on the other hand, is so much more complex. America is the only nation that has been able to pull it off so far. Not only that, but it's not just sending some circuitry and solar panels into orbit. The Space Shuttle was dealing with real people who were to be returned safely. It's quite remarkable that in over 30 years and well over 100 launches there have only been two disasters.

To make a programming analogy that you can understand, this is basically the equivalent of India fucking up a simple "Hello World!" app. It's a fuck up that just shouldn't happen these days.

Re:Your ignorance is astounding.

[edremy]

The Space Shuttle, on the other hand, is so much more complex. America is the only nation that has been able to pull it off so far.

Actually, we're one of two. The Soviet Buran did fly successfully, albeit unmanned. It probably would have worked at least as well as the shuttle -they avoided some of the mistakes on the shuttle, such as using solid rocket boosters and mounting the main engines on the shuttle itself, but the USSR ran out of cash in the late 80s.

Re:Fireworks!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a fucking moron. As though NASA shares technology and mission details with ISRO! In fact, ISRO was put on the American "entity list" (meaning, denied access to information and tech) as early as the 1970s after India conducted a nuclear test. Considering that, what ISRO has achieved is almost as good as inventing it from the bottom up, with severe constraints in resources and funds.

Therefore, a) You are a fucking moron, and b) ISROs track record of the prior successful launches, including a rocket to the moon, reinforces the fact that you are a fucking moron.

Re:hey, don't knock it

[osu-neko]

To be fair, three out of seven GSLV launches have failed. No US space program has that failure rate, even if you don't exclude the mishaps.