Sriharikota, July. 10 (PTI): After the failure of Agni III missile, India's space programme received a major setback today when the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F02) carrying the INSAT-4C communication satellite today veered from its projected path and came crashing down.

ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair, admitting the failure of the mission, said "things have gone wrong in the stage of separation (of the booster from the launch vehicle). We have to analyse the data why it went wrong".

The launch vehicle, carrying the 2168 kg satellite to boost to Direct-to-Home television service and digital news gathering, deviated from its chartered path soon after the lift-off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre here at 1738 hours and disintegrated into a ball of fire.

Soon after the failure of the mission, ISRO officials put the entire system on "emergency condition".

The jubilation among the scientists at the control station of the Space Centre immediately after the launch soon turned into despair as the launch vehicle hurtled down into the Bay of Bengal.

The INSAT-42 launch debacle came a day after the Agni-III nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range upto 3,500km, failed to hit its target off the coast of Orissa and splashed into the sea.

"We have activated and analysed the data and we will get to the bottom of it", Nair said adding "today's happening is a setback, especially after we had 11 continuous successful launches".

On the delay in the schedule, he said there was a leak in the relief valve, leading to some leakage of the cryogenic propellant. "We isolated the valve and took corrective action," Nair said.

The ISRO said the trajectory of the launch vehicle deviated in the fourth or fifth second after the launch. The vehicle, after deviation, exploded and fell in the Bay of Bengal.

The failure of today's mission has put a big question mark on future space programmes of the country.

Whether the country's plan for an unmanned moon mission will be delayed by today's failure is a topic that might crop up in the minds of scientists.

This was the first launch of GSLV from the Rs 350-crore sophisticated launch pad, commissioned in May 2005.

The 49-metre-tall, 414 tonne GSLV was a three-stage vehicle. The first stage, GS1, comprised a core motor with 138 tonne of solid propellants and four strap-on motors, each with 42 tonnes of hypergolic liquid propellant.

The second stage had 39 tonne of the same hypergolic liquid propellant. The third (GS3) was a cryogenic stage with 12.6 tonne of Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Liquid Hydrogen (LH2).

The INSAT 4C, the second satellite in the INSAT 4 series, was aimed at strengthening video picture transmission besides providing space for National Informatics Centre's VSAT connectivity. The lifespan of the satellite was expected to be 10 years.