India's attempt to have its eye in the sky fails

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh: Indian space programme suffered a serious setback on Thursday as its GSLV-F10 rocket failed midway in its mission of putting into orbit the Geo-Imaging Satellite-1 (GISAT-1).

Along with the rocket, the 2,268 kg GISAT-1/EOS-03 communication satellite carried by the rocket was also lost.

Announcing the mission failure, K. Sivan, Chairman, ISRO said: "The mission cannot be fully accomplished because of a technical anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage."

The 57.10 metre tall, 416 tonne Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F10) lifted off from the second launch pad at 5.43 a.m.

With a strong deep growl rose into the sky breaking free from the second launch pad here at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

The GSLV-F10 is a three stage/engine rocket. The core of the first stage is fired with solid fuel and the four strap-on motors by liquid fuel. The second is the liquid fuel and the third is the cryogenic engine.

The rocket laden with GISAT-1 furiously rushed towards the skies with thick orange flame at its rear.

Everything went off well as planned till the cryogenic engine got fired at about five minutes into the rocket's flight.

At about six minutes into the rocket's flight and soon after the cryogenic engine started operation, the mission control centre at the space port here tensed up as there was no data coming from the rocket.

One of the ISRO officials announced that there was a performance anomaly in the cryogenic engine.

Then the officials realised the mission had failed and Sivan made the announcement.

For ISRO, this is the second space mission in 2021 after the successful launch of Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 by its rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) earlier this year.