Satellites placed into wrong orbit, no longer usable: ISRO on its maiden SSLV mission

PTI

Sriharikota (AP), August 7

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday said the satellites on board its maiden Small Satellite Launch Vehicle “are no longer usable” after the SSLV-D1 placed them in an elliptical orbit instead of a circular one.

The space agency said a committee would analyse and make recommendations into today’s episode and with the implementation of those recommendations “ISRO will come back soon with SSLV-D2.”                   

“SSLV-D1 placed the satellites into 356 km x 76 km elliptical orbit instead of 356 km circular orbit. Satellites are no longer usable. Issue is reasonably identified. Failure of a logic to identify a sensor failure and go for a salvage action caused the deviation,” ISRO said in an update on its official Twitter handle.

It added a detailed statement by ISRO Chairman S Somanath will be “uploaded soon.”   

In its maiden SSLV mission, the launch vehicle carried The Earth Observation Satellite EOS-02 and the co-passenger student satellites AzaadiSAT.

SSLV had suffered ‘data loss’ in its terminal stage after performing “as expected” in all stages. It had earlier after lifted off from the spaceport here on Sunday morning.

It is not the first time for ISRO to face a setback on its maiden launch missions as PSLV -- dubbed as one of the trusted workhorses for the space agency -- was not successful in its first flight way back on September 20, 1993.

 After its first successful launch in October 1994, PSLV emerged as the reliable and versatile launch vehicle of India with 39 consecutively successful missions by June 2017.

 It had successfully launched the CHANDRAYAAN-1 in 2008 and also the Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 that later travelled to the Moon and Mars, respectively.

 The first flight of GSLV in April 2001 carrying GSAT-1 was successful for ISRO. From January 2014, the vehicle has achieved four consecutive successes, ISRO said.

 The first developmental flight of GSLV Mk-III, successfully placed GSAT-19 satellite to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) on June 5, 2017.

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