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Exactly three weeks after the GSLV launch was aborted by a computer, ISRO has said that the launcher will take off from Sriharikota on April 18.
This decision was taken and confirmed at a meeting of ISRO's top brass at Sriharikota over the past two days, after the exact condition of the launcher was evaluated.
As the scientists are satisfied that the launch vehicle is in excellent condition, they see no reason for any further delay.
ISRO chairman Dr K Kasturirangan, Sriharikota Space Station Director K Narayanan, advisor R Aravamudan and others were present at the high level meeting, at which it was unanimously decided that the launch was a go.
ISRO is going in for an early launch simply because the vehicle is intact and ready to be launched.
The launch was aborted last time because one of the strap-on engines did not generate sufficient thrust.
Since all the final checks are automated, ISRO's computers aborted the take-off barely four seconds before the launch.
ISRO scientists were far from dejected over the abortion. In fact, they are patting themselves on the backs for having such an excellent fault detection mechanism that simply stalled the launch automatically.
If the vehicle had taken off and then failed, it would have meant a colossal waste of equipment and money. ISRO estimates each launch to cost about Rs 1.5 billion.
At present, all that ISRO had to do was replace one faulty strap-on engine. Everything else is being used exactly from the existing launcher.
The GSLV continued to remain on the pad over the past three weeks. ISRO scientists now regard the aborted launch as an excellent dress rehearsal for the actual launch.
All systems, except for the faulty engine, performed perfectly, giving them the confidence that the forthcoming launch would be perfect, they said.
When the previous generation launcher, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, misfired during Dr U R Rao's tenure as chairman, it took ISRO almost two years to launch it again.
This time, ISRO has its launcher up and ready in record time.
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