BETTER NEXT TIME
The ‘failure’ of the maiden flight of ISRO’s SSLV is not the end of the road, rather this is the start of a new adventurous journey of Indian Space Scientists because such temporary setbacks help in laying a strong basis for the bright future of new technology. From the day one when India ventured into space research such incidents have occurred on and off but what the country has achieved till date in space research is stellar and there is not an iota of doubt that in the coming time India will be the leader in space research and technology. As far as the SSLV’s maiden flight is concerned, three propulsion stages performed well but the problem surfaced in identifying sensor failure leading to aborting of the mission. Reportedly, after cheering and clapping for the lift-off and performance of the various stages of the rocket, there was a silence in the mission control room after the separation of the satellites on board at 738 and 788 seconds after the lift-off. The final word from ISRO was that the satellites got injected into a wrong elliptical orbit owing to failure of logic to identify a sensor failure. The good news after the day of gloom is that a committee would analyse and recommend the steps to rectify the glitches to enable ISRO to come back soon with SSLV-D2. At this juncture, this fact is more important because what has gone will not come back but kindling new hope has the potential to do wonders and hopefully ISRO will do the same in the coming time with D2 version of the SSLV. The need of the time is not to lose heart rather it is the moment to get inspired by the fact that the maiden flight of SSLV D1 took off successfully with the three propulsion stages going perfectly alright. What has gone wrong will be looked after in the next mission as nothing can stop India from becoming the world leader in space technology especially when the PM Narendra Modi is steering the country and giving full support to scientist fraternity to work and excel and touch pinnacle of progress as soon as possible.