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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.
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?
Damn, I already moderated this topic. Now I'll have to log in with my sock puppet to comment.
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.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
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.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."