Course correction

It won't be easy for defence and space engineers to get over the disappointment of the back-to-back failures of Agni-III and the GSLV.

It may not be easy for India's defence and space engineers to get over the disappointment of the back-to-back failures of the intermediate range ballistic missile Agni-III and the Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) over the weekend. In its maiden test, Agni-III, India’s longest-range missile yet, reached a height of 12 km before crashing into the Bay of Bengal. From all accounts, the first phase of the launch was successful and a technical snag in the second phase — during stage separation of the booster from the launcher — caused the failure. It’s too soon to say if the use of new technologies — like more powerful rocket motors and launch control systems — led to the flawed launch, or some trivial error of the type that led to the failure of the 1992 launch.

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The GSLV’s failure, too, should be seen in similar light. It was making its fourth flight when it veered out of control 40 seconds into lift-off from Sriharikota, and had to be destroyed. Statistics show that faulty propulsion subsystems like thrust vector actuators and gimbal mechanisms (that control changes in a rocket’s attitude) cause the most launch vehicle failures worldwide. It may have been no different with the Agni-III and the GSLV, though it must be pointed out that the four-stage GSLV is orders of magnitude more complex than the Agni III. Isro is no stranger to heartbreaks during rocket launches since the vehicles cannot be fully tested on the ground, and developmental flights are the only way to learn how the spacecraft systems would or would not work in a real, dynamic environment.

Neither failure should be seen as some exceptional development. The challenge now is to figure out where the glitch occurred. This is sometimes a more complicated process than is commonly understood. It also requires unusual scientific and technical talent, which need not necessarily be specialised in rockets and missiles. Perhaps the best example is that of Richard Feynman, who figured out the seemingly simple flaw that led to the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster. Hopefully, the review committees that will probe the two failed launches will have the requisite talent to quickly get to the bottom of the problems that beset the two rockets.