​GSLV-D5 launch to be delayed till December

CHENNAI: India's wait for a successful flight of a GSLV rocket fitted with an indigenous cryogenic engine will prolong till mid December. Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairman K Radhakrishnan told TOI on Wednesday that GSLV-D5, whose launch on August 19 as aborted because of a leak in the liquid fuel tank, had to be disassembled and studied closely before the next launch which is likely to be more than four months later.

"We had a detailed review on Monday and decided to change the second stage of the rocket which has some damage," Radhakrishnan said. "The four strap-ons, the tank and the fuel components have to be changed." While the liquid propellant tank will be shifted to the Isro centre in Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu, where another second stage of the rocket will be prepared, the indigenous cryogenic engine, the GSAT-14 satellite and the heat shield components will remain at the Sriharikota spaceport.

Isro scientists said they didn't want to leave anything to chance with the next GSLV launch which is prestigious because its puts to test the indigenous cryogenic engine capabilities. India is left with just one of the seven Russian cryogenic engines it had bought, and needs to develop its own cryogenic engines to propel bigger rockets with up to 5,000 tonnes of payload.

While Isro has perfected its PSLV rockets, which have had a string of 23 successes, the nation's prestigious missions including the manned space mission rest on GSLVs. Isro's first attempt with an indigenous cryogenic engine in April 2010 has been a failure. The second one, slated for August 19, 2013, had to be called off a couple of hours before the scheduled lift-off after one of the cameras at the launch pad detected a fuel leak in the second stage of the rocket.