杏吧原创

India鈥檚 ambition to join the elite club of space nations stalled last week
when the maiden flight of its new 400-tonne Geosynchronous Satellite Launch
Vehicle (GSLV) was aborted on the launch pad. The four liquid-fuel strap-on
boosters ignited as scheduled 4.6 seconds before lift-off but one of the
boosters did not develop sufficient thrust. 鈥淪o the solid stage did not get
ignited,鈥� says Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, head of the Indian Space Research
Organisation. The GSLV is the product of a 10-year, $305 million
programme and was designed to place 2-tonne satellites into geostationary
orbit.