The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, commonly known by its abbreviation PSLV, is an expendable launch system developed and operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was developed to allow India to launch its Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellites into sun synchronous orbits, a service that was, until the advent of the PSLV, commercially available only from Russia. As of 2014 the PSLV has launched 65 satellites / spacecrafts (30 Indian and 35 Foreign Satellites) into a variety of orbits.Some notable payloads launched by PSLV include Indias Chandrayaan-1 lunar probe and the Mars Orbiter Mission.It is the most successful launch vehicle in ISRO, till date, with 25 consecutively successful flights out of 26 launches From the above launches series PSLV-C13 is the ONLY one missing from the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) series .This omission was purely based on widely held belief in numerology about the number 13 which is considered unlucky. Following the advice of some numerologist, ISRO had chosen to skip the problematic number and name the next space mission as PSLV-C14 after PSLV-12.The success of India’s first mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, was an astounding feat. As usual, before the launch, ISRO officials visited the Tirupati temple to offer special prayers for the success of the mission. Trajectories of modern space flights are not controlled by godly intercession and prayers, but accurately computed from the orbital mechanics derived from Newton’s law of motion and gravitation. Deity puja and godly faith cannot fix an engineering fault(although even I sometimes believe that it was only god who cleared my Transport Phenonmena Engineering paper!). In fact, attributing success to higher powers and seeking divine interventions grossly undermine the capabilities and achievements of human ingenuity.That saddens me completely.The proven success of the moon mission was solely due to the diligent efforts of individuals sitting both in Trivandrum and Bengaluru combined with nearly flawless engineering design not a bunch of sanskrit verses.
Posted on: Sat, 30 Aug 2014 04:32:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015