Indian rocket disintegrates after blast-off
Afp, Bangalore
A rocket carrying India's heaviest satellite disintegrated in a ball of smoke and flame seconds after lift-off yesterday, dealing a crippling blow to the country's ambitious space programme. The 49-metre (161-foot) rocket was launched at 1205 GMT from an island off the coast of the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, but veered off course and disintegrated about 30 seconds later, live television pictures showed. "A mishap happened in the first stage of the separation and it will be some time before we know what went wrong," Madhavan Nair, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission chief, told reporters at the launch site. "We have to analyse the sequence of events to see what happened."
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