Scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) headed by its chairman K Radhakrishnan continued their marathon meetings on Sunday, to find out why the GSLV F06 rocket launch on Saturday failed.
The scientists pored over flight data generated by the rocket which went out of
control in less than a minute after lift-off from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
Within hours of the craft’s explosion, nearly 50 ISRO officials involved in the project had got busy at the Satish Dhavan Space Centre with onsite investigations to find out what could have caused the breakdown of the communication system which is believed to have led to the failure of the launch. The communication centre carries commands from the ground control to the rocket.
Within 47 seconds of the lift-off, the command control centre on the ground lost control of the vehicle that veered off course. Within another 16 seconds, ISRO had to abort mission and issue a command to destroy the rocket as it had caught fire.
The rocket was carrying the GSAT-5P communications satellite, which was to replace the INSAT-2E satellite launched in 1999. GSAT-5P, like INSAT-2E, was telecommunications and weather forecast satellite.