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  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

India’s latest rocket flies but payloads don't prosper

(2022/08/08)


India's small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) made a spectacular debut launch on Sunday, but the mission fell short of overall success when two satellites were inserted into the incorrect orbit, rendering them space junk.

The SSLV was developed to carry payloads of up to 500kg to low Earth orbits on an "on-demand basis". India hopes the craft will let its space agency target commercial launches.

Although it is capable of achieving 500km orbits, SSLV's Sunday payload was a 135kg Earth observation satellite called EOS-2 and student-designed 8kg 8U cubesat AzaadiSAT. Both were intended for a 356km orbit at an inclination of about 37 degrees.

[1]

The rocket missed that target.

[2]

[3]

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) identified the root cause of the failure Sunday night: a failure of logic to identify a sensor failure during the rocket stage.

(1/2) SSLV-D1/EOS-02 Mission update: SSLV-D1 placed the satellites into 356 km x 76 km elliptical orbit instead of 356 km circular orbit. Satellites are no longer usable. Issue is reasonably identified. Failure of a logic to identify a sensor failure and go for a salvage action — ISRO (@isro) [4]August 7, 2022

ISRO [5]further tweeted a committee would analyse the situation and provide recommendations as the org prepared for SSLV-D2.

[6]Indian government tells Starlink to refund pre-orders placed before licences approved

[7]India's return to space fails after first locally built cryogenic engine experiences 'anomaly'

[8]Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists

[9]SpaceX demonstrates that it too can shower the Earth with debris

ISRO chairman S Somanath [10]further explained the scenario in a video statement, before vowing to become completely successful in the second development flight of SSLV. "The vehicle took off majestically" said Somanath, who categorized the three rocket stages and launch as a success.

"However, we subsequently noticed an anomaly in the placement of the satellites in the orbit. The satellites were placed in an elliptical orbit in place of a circular orbit," caveated the chairman.

Somanath said the satellites could not withstand the atmospheric drag in the elliptical orbit and had already fallen and become "no longer usable". The sensor isolation principle is to be corrected before SSLV's second launch to occur "very soon".

[11]

Although ISRO has put on a brave face, it's hard to imagine the emotions of the school children who designed AzaadiSAT. According to the space org, the satellite was built by female students in rural regions across the country, with guidance from the team of of student space-enthusiast org Space Kidz India.

EOS-2 was designed by ISRO and was slated to offer advanced optical remote sensing in the infrared band with high spatial resolution. ®

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[4] https://twitter.com/isro/status/1556208112138215424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[5] https://twitter.com/isro/status/1556208114621222912

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/05/starlink_india_exec_quits/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/12/isro_gslv_fl10_failure/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/04/solar_hydrocarbon_production/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/03/spacex_debris/

[10] https://www.isro.gov.in/sslv-d1-eos-02-mission/statement-chairman-isro

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[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



Verbing Nouns

105kayem

“The satellites were placed in an elliptical orbit in place of a circular orbit,” caveated the chairman.”

In what way does “ caveated “ make any sort of sense in that sentence?

Re: Verbing Nouns

Flocke Kroes

In English caveat has been nounified to mean a warning, but it is actually a verb. Third person active present subjunctive of cavere: "Let him/her/it beware" as in "caveat emptor" (buyer beware). Grey beards from posh schools would know it from the first person perfect active "cavi" (pronounced kay vee) meaning "I have looked out" or "the teacher is coming". The proper Latin here would probably be "cavit" (she warned) but only ex-public school kids now in their dotage would understand that.

Re: Verbing Nouns

Brewster's Angle Grinder

So we're saying the actual error is declining a Latin verb like an English verb and then surrounding it with other English words...?

Re: Verbing Nouns

Flocke Kroes

I am not convinced there is an error. It sounds a little odd but going back to the source of the word does not make things any better.

Caveated

The Oncoming Scorn

It's late here but

Biriyani beware!

Failure of logic

Anonymous Coward

= software failure.

Indian developers, releasing stuff that's incomplete or improperly tested, I can't believe that could possibly happen.

Re: Failure of logic

Anonymous Coward

Because they couldn't find the code on Stack Overflow to copy from?

Mr F&*king Grumpy

Indian developers, releasing stuff that's incomplete or improperly tested PHBs (any nationality) pushing to release stuff too early to meet arbitrary deadlines and trouser their bonuses, I can't believe that could possibly happen.

Fixed that for you....

Anonymous Coward

Yeah but - in my experience - cultural differences mean Indian Devs are generally much less likely to raise concerns with their superiors, if they've been told it's ready, then it's ready. Whereas if I was told to release something that wasn't ready to the point of it being a car-crash, I'd make noise about it, and if it was safety critical I'd be prepared to make so much noise that I'd risk my job, or certainly my career prospects.

Anonymous Coward

... it's hard to imagine the emotions of the school children ... According to the space org, the satellite was built by female students in rural regions across the country, with guidance from the team of of student space-enthusiast org Space Kidz India.

So they get to build it again! Twice as fun.

It was a much safer idea than sending a schoolteacher into space.

Potemkine!

As long as you learn from failure, it still can be a positive event.

Like they said in the old days, errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum

Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of
data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover
an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order
and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation
which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation
in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct
hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to
construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to
assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves
only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity
of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978). In the
analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to
appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses.
-- A. Benjamin