India’s rocket mission suffers data loss
September 14, 2022
India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its ‘New Space’ commercial are doing well in winning valuable new rocket launch contracts. But the maiden flight of its latest rocket version wasn’t smooth.
The task was to launch an Earth observation satellite plus a separate task for Indian students (AzaadiSat), but ISRO announced that the rocket’s cargo had suffered a “data loss”.
ISRO Chairman S Somanath updated the situation following on from the September 11th launch. “All stages performed as expected. The first stage performed and separated, second stage performed and separated, the third stage also performed and separated, and in the terminal phase of the mission, some data loss is occurring, and we are analysing the data and we will come back on the status of the satellites as well as the vehicle performance soon,” he said.
ISRO’s SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) design is looking for new business from the growing demand for smaller satellites to be launched.
The loss – if confirmed – of the very small AzaadiSAT is especially sad given that the 8U CubeSat weighing around 8 kilograms. But it carried 75 different payloads each weighing around 50 grams. Girl students from rural regions across the country were provided guidance to build these payloads.
Meanwhile, ISRO is busy developing new satellites with ‘beam shaping technology. ~~“Intelligent’ GSATs would allow users to shape pinpoint beams, which are focused, high-power radio signals supplied via satellite. In the years to come, we are also considering some intelligent Geosynchronous Satellites (GSAT), that we’ll be able to reconfigure and redesign according to demand. This is already being talked about in our design department,” Somnath stated.