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Ganesh A Nadar in Sriharikota
A flustered chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, Dr K Kasturirangan, on Wednesday sought to downplay the aborting of the GSLV launch.
Briefing the media minutes after the incident, Dr Kasturirangan said the mishap occurred when one of four liquid propellant strap-ons on the launch vehicle, which give a thrust of at least 90 per cent once they are ignited, failed.
When this happened, the chairman said, the inbuilt safety mechanism aborted the take-off so that the solid fuel of the rockets was not ignited.
"The entire vehicle is covered, and opens in stages. But today because of the safety mechanism nothing opened, and the vehicle is safe," Dr Kasturirangan told the media.
Drawing lessons from Wednesday's incident, the chairman said he was happy that the safety mechanism worked.
He said that the flames did not destroy anything important on the vehicle or on the ground. "As far as we know till now, we have not been able to find the reason for this failure," he added.
"I spoke to the prime minister and he was as disappointed as all of us. I have promised him that we will work hard and find out the reason (for the mishap), rectify it and launch the vehicle as soon as possible," Dr Kasturirangan told newspersons.
The entire media briefing lasted five minutes, and Dr Kasturirangan cried off from further questions, saying that he will disclose more as soon as he gets more information of what went wrong.
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