Posted: Mon, Jul 10, 2006, 2:19 PM ET (1819 GMT)
An Indian rocket carrying a domestic communications satellite flew off course and was destroyed shortly after liftoff Monday. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast of India at 8:08 am EDT (1208 GMT) Monday. According to media accounts, the rocket went off course less than a minute after liftoff and later exploded, raining debris into the Bay of Bengal. While ISRO, in a terse statement, would only say that the rocket "could not complete the mission", officials are reportedly focusing their attention on one of four strap-on liquid-propellant boosters, whose thrust apparently dropped to zero, creating an asymmetric thrust that caused the GSLV to stray off course. The GSLV was carrying the INSAT 4C communications satellite; the 2,168-kg spacecraft carried 12 Ku-band transponders designed to provide video services from 74 degrees east longitude in GEO. The failure was the first in four launch attempts for the GSLV, India's largest booster.
