India's New Small Rocket Fails Debut Mission, Loses Satellite Payloads
India's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle fails to reach its target orbit during its maiden flight, resulting in the loss of two satellites. A sensor logic failure causes the rocket to deploy the payloads into an unstable elliptical orbit that pulls them back into Earth's atmosphere.
India's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) experiences a failure during its maiden flight, resulting in the loss of both satellite payloads. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) confirms that the satellites are no longer usable after the rocket's final stage mistakenly places them into an elliptical orbit instead of a circular one.
ISRO Chairman Shri Somanath states that the rocket's three main stages perform nominally, but a sensor failure in the terminal velocity trimming module causes the anomaly. Because the satellites deploy at 356 kilometers into an unstable elliptical path, they ultimately descend back into Earth's atmosphere at the orbit's lowest point.
The 111-foot-tall SSLV is designed as a launch-on-demand solution to compete in the growing small satellite market, capable of lifting up to 500 kilograms to low Earth orbit. The lost payloads include an ISRO Earth observation satellite and a student-built CubeSat carrying 75 experiments, but ISRO plans to investigate the logic failure before attempting a second developmental flight.