The Hindu : National : `Manufacturer of faulty part identified'

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Thursday, Sep 07, 2006

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National

`Manufacturer of faulty part identified'

Staff Reporter

Next launch sometime in June 2007: ISRO chief

BANGALORE: The Indian Space Research Organisation has identified the manufacturer of the faulty regulator that led to the failure of GSLV-F02, G. Madhavan Nair, chairman, said on Wednesday. The manufacturer will not be blacklisted.

"The penalty clause specified in the agreement will be applied to make sure that the industry provides components to the specification henceforth," he told presspersons here. The manufacturer had so far supplied eight regulators. "Seven regulators worked fine. Only one failed. We had no reason to believe that a regulator supplied by a manufacturer with a good track record would fail."

The failure had not derailed the GSLV programme.

The next launch would take place sometime in June 2007. The GSLV-F02 launch was the fourth in the series.

All the three earlier missions (GSLV-D1, D2 and F01) were successful. The GSLV-F02 was carrying the fourth generation INSAT satellite, INSAT 4C, which was aimed at giving a fillip to Direct-to-Home television. When one of the four liquid propellant strap-on stages failed, the launch vehicle started deviating from its nominal flight path, which resulted in the vehicle breaking up at 62 seconds after lift-off. The debris fell into the Bay of Bengal, Dr. Nair said.

M. Annamalai, Director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, said recovery had been planned in two phases. The first had been completed. ISRO recovered two engines from the Bay of Bengal.

"We still have to recover the remaining debris. The second phase of the recovery programme will be launched soon. We hope to recover the failed booster."

Dr. Nair said work on realising hardware for the moon mission, Chandrayaan, was in the final stages. An 18-metre dish had been positioned at the new deep space tracking station near Bangalore.

The Electronic Corporation of India Limited . was developing a dish with a 34-metre diameter, which would be erected sometime next year.

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