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Opinion - Interviews

‘Space is a risky business’

W2M failure will not affect ISRO’s commercial venture, says G. Madhavan Nair.

— Photo: Pallava Bagla

We have successfully stabilised W2M, says G. Madhavan Nair.

India’s maiden commercial venture at making a satellite for an overseas customer suffered a severe set back when the Indian-made satellite named W2M encountered an ‘anomaly’ last month in its power supply assembly. It was jointly built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and EADS-Astrium of Europe for Eutelsat another European communications company and launched last year using the Ariane rocket.

In his first ever interview after the satellite suffered a setback, G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation spoke to Pallava Bagla on what could have happened and the lessons learnt.

What happened to W2M, the commercial satellite which was fabricated by ISRO for an overseas country?

I think it was doing well and its performance has been quite good. We had tested it in all respects and then handed it over to the foreign customer and they also conducted their acceptance tests and other things. It was about to be put to operation. But unfortunately in the last phase of commissioning, suddenly an anomaly occurred in the power system. Right now we have to put the spacecraft in a safe mode and we are investigating.

So on the ground when you tested it, it was perfectly all right?

Not only on the ground even in the orbit I think it has gone through the initial period of stabilisation and then even switched on the transponders and calibrated the antenna systems. All those events went well. It was about to be offered for commercial operation. In that phase this anomaly occurred. It was weeks away from the actual [commercialising] event.

What is the actual anomaly?

Basically the power system got affected. So now we can actually start looking at similar events which happened over the last year or so. Many of the high powered satellites got affected mainly in the power system and probably this also could be of the same kind.

This is our guess. But we have to see what happens, once the power goes initially the data is lost. So now we are trying to re-establish the power by rotating the panel and so on. Of course we have succeeded in stabilising the satellite, keeping it in the safe mode. Beyond that, unless we get the data, we can’t really say what exactly has gone wrong.

So is it a hardware failure or software?

Can’t say. Nothing to do with software. One can always have a guess, for example there are some electrostatic built up due to radiation from Sun, etc. That could be one of the things which can affect. Then if there is any hit by a meteorite and things like that. And third of course, any operational mistake.

So these are the areas one has to look into, so we are in the process of investigation.

So it was not a hit by space debris?

Can’t say. See, unless we have the signatures collected we can’t rule out such possibilities.

People in the know of things in ISRO are also telling me that there is a possibility of a directed high energy beam striking the satellite?

No, those type of things are not foreseen. I don’t think it can penetrate to the type of protection that we have given. I think such a possibility is very very remote. In Star Wars you have seen such things. But you know, if there is an electrostatic discharge, it is almost like lightning. The lightning also is sudden.

But I was told there were no solar flares at that time?

No, we have to find out. But basically you know, it need not be a flare of a large magnitude. But if there is an intense charge cloud, it could a residue from something earlier and it can affect the spacecraft. In fact, last year four or five [other international] failures were reported, some of them were apparently due to such charge clouds around the system.

Because it was your first really commercial venture in that sense there was a motive?

True, you know, but the reality is, I think in the last two years, in high powered satellites, there were about 40 per cent failures.

Are your commercial plans going to get affected because of this?

No, I think normally such stray incidents should not affect the activities with the outside world or within us. So we will have to go to the root cause, try to pinpoint, and see. First of all this satellite itself we will try to work out a strategy by which whether we can recover some resources. Second, for the future, what further strengthening may be required has to be addressed.

But have any of your existing commercial partners expressed any apprehensions?

No, I think the satellite building is going on as planned. One more is being built already.

What is it called?

It is called Hylas.

So that plan is not affected?

No. But we will revisit it totally in the light of this experience, but that is a relatively low powered satellite bus.

But you don’t think in future your commercial plans are likely to be affected at all?

No. You see it is nothing new for space community. Such events do take place with others as well, space is a risky business.

Are there any insurance implications for the country?

No, normally the user will insure, our job is up to delivery in space. That had been completed.

(Pallava Bagla is the Science Editor for NDTV and a correspondent for the American magazine Science.)

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‘Space is a risky business’