Cartosat-2 to carry 28 co-passengers

Inadequate pressure failed heat-shield separation

BENGALURU: Private industry in India will soon be playing a vital role in building launch vehicles, an area that remained out-of-bounds for them so far, with the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) having begun work on forming a Joint Venture (JV) with private firms, which will launch a rocket by 2020.Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar said on Monday that while groundwork for this has already begun for a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV ) JV, the space agency is awaiting clearances to form the same, which will help Isro increase the number of launches per year.Kumar said that Isro, which presently does about eight to ten launches a year is aiming at doing 18 per annum, which cannot be achieved without private participation. Isro presently has 40 operational satellites in different orbits, but Kumar said that the requirement of the country is “much much higher.”“This (private involvement) is not just to meet our demand, but to also enable Indian firms to bag a significant pie of the global market, demand where is also only increasing. Recently we even saw a private firm integrate satellites at our facility, even that was a first of its kind initiative. Earlier private firms worked on supplying subsystems and other components,” Kumar said.Kumar said that there are about 31 firms in India that claim they are ready to build launch vehicles—mostly small rockets—but did not confirm if any one of these firms would be part of the proposed JV.Stating that private participation in building launch vehicles will go a long way in making India a space destination, Kumar, however, said that the crucial issue would be to ensure quality. “... Space launches are a business of risk, there is no space for those with weak hearts here. That said, there will be no compromise on safety and rigour that is required in such programmes,” he said.Isro, which plans to put into orbit Cartosat-2 into orbit in the second half of December—the first launch of PSLV since its failure on August 31—will be carrying 28 co-passengers and not 30 as reported earlier, Antrix CMD S Rakesh said on Monday.Antrix is the commercial arm of Isro, and is in charge of selling space on launch vehicles. “Apart from the Cartosat-2 we have 25 nano satellites and three micro satellites. There is one cluster from the US and a few others from other countries,” Rakesh told reporters at a press conference.Cartosat-2 will add to the existing constellation of satellites and provide high-quality images that can be used for both civilian and military applications.Isro chairman AS Kiran Kumar on Monday said that inadequate pressure in the bellow pump resulted in the heat shield not separating from the satellite, resulting in a failure of the mission on August 31.The PSLV C-39 was carrying the IRNSS-1H was then declared an unsuccessful mission. The committee looking into the failure analysis, Kumar said, has found that the automated commands were performed accurately.“There was no fundamental problem, that’s clear. A system that has performed so well on so many occasion could not just go wrong. The failure happened because there was not enough pressure in the bellow pump, which resulted in the non-separation,” Kumar said.He said that a lot of external variables were responsible for this and the final report of the committee is awaited. Another senior official from Isro said that the simulations and other analysis by the committee is complete and that the report will soon be out.