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The much-awaited first flight of the Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from the SHAR centre carrying a communication satellite failed after flames engulfed the motors at the take-off stage.
As the entire mission staff anxiously watched the countdown for a smooth lift-off and the countdown ended at 1547 hours IST, thick flames engulfed the motors.
"The mission is aborted," said a commentator from the launch site, on Doordarshan, which was telecasting the launch live.
The ISRO team would have to sit down to find out what went wrong and it would need to be corrected, said the commentator.
Doordarshan cameras focussed on the mission control room soon after the fire and the telecast abruptly ended. DD then moved on the live telecast of the cricket match between India and Australia.
ISRO chief K Kasturirangan was among scientists present at the mission control room who were disappointed at the aborted launch.
GSLV's success will allow India to bid for launching other countries' satellites into space in the multibillion dollar global business.
The three-stage GSLV-D1, India's first satellite launch vehicle using the cryogenic engine (the third stage), is the culmination of a 10-year long most ambitious effort by Indian scientists which had cost the exchequer Rs 1400 crore.
The GSLV was designed to place satellites in Geo-Synchronous Transfer Orbit.
It adopts the flight-proven solid and liquid stages of the Indian Space Research Organisation's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and a cryogenic upper stage.
The first development flight, GSLV-D1, carried the experimental communication satellite, GSAT-1. GSLV was a three-stage vehicle, 49m tall.
The first stage, GS1, comprised a solid propellant motor (S125) and four liquid propellant strap-on stages (L40). The second stage (GS2) was powered by a single-liquid propellant engine (L37.5). The third stage (GS3) was a cryogenic stage (C12) with re-startable engines.
(With inputs from PTI)
ALSO SEEThe countdown: 10...9...8
EXTERNAL LINKThe Indian Space Research Organisation
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