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A Ganesh Nadar in Sriharikota
Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky.
The nursery rhyme from years gone by came flooding back on a hot Wednesday afternoon as the Geo-stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle soared into the clear skies, taking the hopes of a nation with it. The rocket soared higher and higher... and then the wait ended, exactly 1040 seconds later, when the GSAT-1 satellite was injected into orbit at just the right speed. By then, the launch vehicle had traversed a distance of more than 5,000 km from terra firma.
Less than 18 minutes earlier, the tension at the Indian Space Research Organisation's launch station at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh had been palpable. Understandably so. After all, just 20 days earlier we had all waited at exactly the same place with the same sense of anticipation, only to have the launch aborted a bare second before lift-off.
The scheduled time for launch on March 28 was 1547 IST. This time it was 1543 IST. Whether the four-minute difference had any astrological significance, we do not know. But what we do know is that on this, the second occasion, there was just no stopping the ISRO team.
They burnt 399.5 tonnes of fuel to put 1.5 tonnes into space at a cost of Rs 1,400 crore [Rs 14 billion]. And in a week's time, the satellite will settle in its proper place in a geo-synchronous orbit right above the Equator.
Even the assembled journalists, a cynical lot at the best of times, cheered and jumped about like gleeful young children. So you can well imagine what the reaction of the scientists and technicians who had laboured so hard on this project would have been.
Seeing the launch vehicle ascend to the heavens was an uplifting sight. The horizons seemed to light up as the giant bird appeared above the treetops, leaving behind a fiery trail. Up, up, up it went, aiming straight for the skies.
As the primary strap-on stage (the one which had failed to ignite on the first attempt) separated and fell to earth, a massive cheer went up all around. Almost simultaneously, the launch vehicle turned left and streaked across the clear blue sky, becoming smaller and smaller as it burnt up fuel in stages. Soon it was just a speck on the horizon and then it disappeared from view.
PTI Adds: All stages of the launch vehicle, including the most critical cryogenic engines in the third and final stage, performed perfectly and everything went as per schedule, a spokesman of the SHAR said.
The stage-wise journey of the spacecraft after lift-off was monitored by ISRO scientists led by their chairman, Dr K Kasturirangan, at the SHAR Centre.
The GSLV, the heaviest spacecraft developed indigenously, will be inducted into the country's regular satellite launch system after two more developmental flights.
The ambitious Rs 1,400 crore project will put India into the elite club of five other space-faring countries -- the United States, Russia, Japan, China and the European Union -- which have already crossed the geo-stationary milestone.
The GSLV series vehicles are meant to carry payloads of 2000 kilogrammes and above into geo-synchronous orbits. The success of the mission will open up immense commercial possibilities for the country. Not only will it make the country self-reliant in launching its own satellites at lower costs, it will also bring in revenue from the launch of foreign satellites.
EARLIER REPORT: GSLV mission succeeds at the second attempt
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