Why ISRO's GSLV-F10 failed

Despite a major failure of cryo stage in the GSLV launch, ISRO is pushing ahead with its other launches.

 Why ISRO's GSLV-F10 failed

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• The story: The ISRO EOS-3 launch came after a long hiatus, due to the pandemic-induced slowdown in space activities. Sadly for Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) launch calendar, it failed.
• Failures not unexpected: Though it is a setback, but space agencies all around the world know failures are a part of space exploration. All failures are analysed, and then remedial actions taken for the future.
• The problem: About five minutes into the launch early on 12th August morning, the flight of GSLV-F10, carrying an earth observation satellite EOS-03, deviated from its scheduled trajectory.

1. The first and second stages of the rocket had functioned normally and detached.
2. Then came the upper stage, powered by a cryogenic engine fuelled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen at very low temperatures, that failed to ignite. (c) So, the rocket soon lost the power to carry on and its remains, along with that of the satellite, fell off somewhere in the Andaman Sea.

• The satellite: The EOS-03, a powerful earth observation satellite, was supposed to help in near real-time monitoring of the Indian landmass. The deployment was planned for March 2020, but delayed by over a year and a half, due to technical glitches and then by the pandemic.

1. EOS-03 would have provided relatively low-resolution, but continuous, imagery of the Indian landmass that was meant to be used for monitoring of natural disaster like floods and cyclones, water bodies, crops, vegetation and forest cover.
2. Officially, ISRO said “(The mission) could not be fully accomplished mainly because of a technical anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage.”

• Cryo trouble: Problems in the cryogenic stage are not new. A similar issue had led to the failure of GSLV-D3 as well in April 2010. That was the first flight of GSLV with an indigenous cryogenic engine modelled on the Russian design, very similar to the one flown now. The cryogenic stage had failed to ignite then too.

1. Eight months later, the next GSLV flight, this time being powered by a Russian cryogenic engine, the last one of the seven that Russia had supplied as part of a deal in the 1990s, also failed. A failure analysis had found malfunctioning in the electronics of the cryogenic engine.
2. Between then and now, however, the GSLV Mk-II rocket has carried out six successful launches, all using that same indigenously developed cryogenic engine in the upper stage, the last one in December 2018 which deposited GSAT-7A, a communication satellite, into its orbit.

• What next: The year 2021 has no more launches of GSLV Mk-II scheduled. If this accident was incidental, then nothing major will happen. If it was a technically serious issue, then there is a structural problem.
• Future missions: Missions like Gaganyaan and Chandrayaan-3 will be launched on GSLV Mk-III, a more advanced version of the GSLV rocket that is designed to carry heavier payloads into space. That too uses an indigenously-developed cryogenic engine in the upper stage, but, unlike the one in Mk-II, this is not a reverse-engineered Russian engine.

1. There the cryogenic engine used is called CE20, the result of over three decades of research and development, starting from scratch, and uses a different process to burn fuel.
2. It is closer to the designs used in the Arianne rockets that were used by ISRO earlier to send its heavier satellites into space.
3. It is much simpler and, because it is entirely home-grown, ISRO scientists have a much better grip on its technology. GSLV Mk-III has had four successful flights till now, including the one that launched Chandrayaan-2 in 2019.

• NISAR: This failure is a cause of worry for the NISAR mission, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between NASA and ISRO for a joint earth-observation satellite. NISAR, which will use two synthetic aperture radars (SAR) to monitor the entire Earth in a 12-day cycle, is the most important mission as yet involving the GSLV Mk-II rocket. The NISAR mission aims to measure the Earth’s changing ecosystems and dynamic surfaces to provide information about biomass, natural hazards, sea-level rise and groundwater.

 

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