Mission can be rescheduled again: Jitendra Singh after GSLV fails to inject EOS-03 satellite in orbit

Singh, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and in-charge of the Department of Space, said he had a detailed discussion with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sivan over the mission.

He said the first two stages of the launch went off fine and only after that there was a difficulty in cryogenic upper stage ignition.

“Spoke to Chairman #ISRO, Dr K Sivan and discussed in detail. The first two stages went off fine, only after that there was a difficulty in cryogenic upper stage ignition. The mission can be re-scheduled some time again,” Singh tweeted.

The GSLV rocket, launched in the early hours of Thursday, failed to inject into the orbit the country’s latest earth observation satellite EOS-03 due to a failure to ignite the cryogenic stage of the launch vehicle, prompting the premier space agency to declare the mission could not be achieved as intended.

According to the ISRO, the cryogenic upper stage ignition was scheduled to take place 4.56 minutes after the lift-off.

A formal announcement was also made at the Mission Control Centre by the range operations director, stating, “Performance anomaly observed in the cryogenic stage. The mission could not be accomplished fully.”

The EOS-03 was intended to provide real-time images of large area region of interest at frequent intervals with capability to provide vital information for application in different sectors including agriculture, forestry, water bodies as well as for disaster warning, cyclone monitoring, cloudburst or thunderstorm monitoring.