Indian rocket launch flops

[Neo]

Indian rocket launch flops

BANGALORE: Indian space engineers lost contact with a rocket showcasing new indigenously built booster technology on Thursday soon after launch, in a major blow to the country’s space ambitions. The launch of the first India-made rocket powered by cryogenic motors, a complex technology mastered by just five countries, failed soon after lift-off from India’s space centre at Sriharikota in southeast Andhra Pradesh state. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K Radhakrishnan told reporters that the rocket began tumbling soon after launch “indicating the controllability was lost”. Cryogenic boosters use super-cooled liquid fuel and the technology has only been successfully developed by the US, Russia, France, Japan and China. India had previously imported seven cryogenic engines from Russia, using five of them to launch heavy satellites over the last decade. The technology is intended to launch heavier satellites into high orbits, about 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) from the earth, ISRO has said. afp

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