W2M, the first satellite to come out of a European/Indian joint venture signed in February 2006, was launched on December 20 for Paris-based Eutelsat. On the evening of January 22, a major malfunction occurred with the power system, prompting the Indian Space Research Organization to declare the satellite a failure.
Engineers will continue to try to revive some portion of the satellite for operation — after all, it’s hard to just say “Whoops, let’s hope the next one works better!” If the W2M can’t be revived, it’ll be navigated into a so-called “graveyard orbit”, along with all the other space debris, bringing the movie Wall-E one step closer to reality.
And you complain when your phone locks up!
Via SpaceMart
Scary how much real life and Wall-E mimic each other.
The obesity epidemic has just begun!
Maybe Europeans need to stop wasting money on cooperating with a useless Indian institute and build the thing themselves.
Yes I fully agree. ISRO itself is not a self reliant organisation. It is also claimed that this is the heaviest satellite ever built by ISRO. Euraopean Union had been fooled by clever marketing by money mongering ISRO. Usually this type of contract materialises for ’some other’ considerations of mutual benefit.
ISRO on its part has to now ‘cough up’ a lot of taxpayers’ money to re-build another satellite in compensation and also launch the same at its own cost. Thats what we understand from the terms of contract. In my view, ISRO should attempt such commercial ventures only after proving itself in the GSLV launch service, which is limping after its failures in both F02 mission as well as problems with the cryogenic technology development, in terms of both stage and engine.
When is the launch of GSLV with indian cryogenic stage? It seems nobody bothers about the statements made by the ISRO top brass during the successful missions. What happened to the heavier version of GSLV, Is it ready for launch? As per the decade plan of ISRO website, there are about 3-4 GSLVs not yet launched, including the D3 with india cryo stage. Heavy GSLV MK3 should have been launched in 2008, but we hear nothing about this, in the media. for the last 1 year or so. ISRO has abandoned this program or not?
Our politicians under the present dispensation are keen in amassing wealth for the party and donot bother about the promises. What a pity?
Oh what a fantastic comment? It seems that Ms Uma is well versed with the ISRO programs. Her comments on the ISRO development promises are coreect. Most of such promises are not followed up properly. It claims it is a high-tech R&D organisation. For this W2M mission also ISRO should come out with what went wrong and how they are going to replace the failed satellite. What is the loss to the nation because of this?
We definitely feel pity that ISRO’s first adventure is a fialure. Also we agree that in space arena, success and failures are inevitable. But what we donot agree is that why ISRO should venture into commerce, as its own program itself a ‘borrowed one’. ISRO has never devleoped any critical technology. Now last month we saw the approval of semi-cryo project, a technology developed by Robert Goddard before world war II. If ISRO can develop this technology on its own, we can be proud of the organisation, Let us see what is in store for us.
in your school life, you must have submitted your assgnments late. building a satellite is not a joke. it takes months & months to fabricate it. one thing you might have heard of isro is that we complete projects n much less cost than others. this is because isro does not hurry up and bring GSLV Mk3 to launch pad. if it does so, it will face failures like apollo mission. you know in a mars mission by nasa, nasa created a confusion in the si units and british units. the whole mission failed. these things happen because of race b/w us & russia.
moreover, isro cannot fool any other organisation that easily. are you working for the country, think about that first.
and who will blame the ESA, who built W2M in colloboration with isro, the payloads of W2M are from ESA. and the satellite has been launched by esa. why you are blaming GSLV.
ISRO has completed a along list of projects successfully . This achievement against our not so advanced technological base is well recognized. The problem associated with W2M has to be analyzed and corrective measures taken .A sweeping view on ISRO on W2m alone is uncharitable , to say the least .
i think now no need to reply to ms uma she had got her answer in a mannered way and my frnds i am proud of being Indian and ISRO is doing quite well in its field. its long list of successfully completed project proves it.
W2M was built by a joint venture of ISRO and EADS Astrium (Europe’s major space company). At this time the precise reasons for its failure are not yet made public but are concerned with the ISRO made Solar Array Drive Assembly. All aspects of the Astrium payload and overall project management were successful but the failure and loss of this satellite is wholly due to Indian technology. Very sad but true.
The failure occured more than one and a half months ago. ISRO must have analysed the failure signature and must be in a position to pinpoint the root cause of failure. Has it informed ESA about this? In this hi-tech world failures are not a shame but not coming out clean on them is
i agree with sagar’s comment all payloads are from esa isro just assenbled them ,a failed project dosent mean that everything is doomed. it does a collaboration with other organisation to earn and give money to indian government wat abt 40 million it earn through w2m satellite and other launces it earned about 900 crores to indian government .even after that failure esa is doing another project with isro
about gslv mk3 it will be launched by the year end
to Mr Oxo Cube,
isro is going to replace w2m with compensation by another satellite.
to Ulagannan Kochi and uma,
even russia uses semi cryogenic technology and world famous nasa too used this technology so stop blamming like this isro has earned 900 hundred crores to indian governent. the cause for it to for this kind of collaboration is because to prove world its efficiency and remember gorvernment will provide funds to well operating organisation only.chandrayaan is a nation’s pride project many indian’s itself said it was waste of money with poeple this how can concentrate on other projects they have to earn to run their project as goverment allocates low budget for isro.
compared to nasa our budget is many times lower.so they earn like this to run isro organisation .
It seems to me that Uma and ulagannan are completely mistaken. If you have visited the wikipedia page on 2009 launches then you can see that GSLV mark 2 will be launched in 2009 june july. ISRO have made statement regarding this. We are having one cryogenic engine now and we are going to use it.And regarding the W2m . What about the INSAT 1A and 1C ?.They were built for us by Americans . They were failures(quickly decommissioned after launch).Space tech is not easy as you think.You both don’t even bother to visit some new space tech sites. ISRO will test the stages of Mark3 in 2009 itself and will launch it by 2010-2011. I agree that ISRO is delayed in some matters.But what about the workforce ?. ISRO is not having enough persons to undertake such a big engineering challenge in a limited time frame. All are going to USA or other nations for better salaries .That is why ISRO has started IIST.And which all GSLV missions were failures? only one-the F-02 . the D1 mission was not a full failure. Only the “Russian made cryo engine”caused a 0.6% reduction in launch velocity. Again space tech is highly complicated. You say that the launchers should not fail.IS it possible? No . every launcher has some problems.Even NASA,Soviet Union and present Roscosmos,JAXA,ESA etchad problems with their launchers . Recently a launch by Americans ended in failure- the launch of OCO by Taurus rocket.
Last regarding Mr Ulagannan’s comment.He is wrong. Ms/ Mrs Uma IS NOT well versed with ISRO and its programs . ISRO site is not the only site to refer for technology.
ISRO is the path of progress.We should be proud of it.
From ISRO site: The approved strength of the department is 16,192 of which 11,057 are in scientific and technical categories and 5,135 in administrative categories.
It does not give actual number of emplyees at present.
Eutelsat will continue to rely on its ageing W2 until next one is launched.
W2W was launched on December 20 on a European launcher. It was supposed to have a life of 15 years.
A serious in-orbit power failure has hit W2M, the satellite that ISRO and EADS Astrium co-built for Eutelsat. The failure may have jolted the national space agency’s dream of gaining a foothold in the global satellite-making market in the glow of its successful lunar mission.
Until now, ISRO’s satellites – unlike its launchers – have had an almost unsullied record, except for Insat-2D, which had a similar power failure in October 1997. The Ford Aerospace-built Insat-1C was abandoned in November 1989.
- Isro.Us Webmaster
I think the risks in space arena are very high and failures such as this may be taken as to improve the system. ISRO is a unique organisation in itself,looking a head after fulfilling the nations needs. so looking for new ventures is a positive sign.
WISHING ALL THE BEST IN THEIR FUTURE VENTURES