India’s celebrated space programme suffered a severe embarrassment over the Christmas weekend when a communications satellite veered off course after lift off and exploded.
Television footage showed the rocket engulfed in plumes of black and brown smoke about a minute after leaving its launch pad at a location near India’s southern city of Chennai.
The Christmas Day mishap was the second failure of a satellite launch in a year at a time when India is trying to commercialise its satellite launch capabilities. In April, a similar rocket carrying a satellite had similarly veered off course.
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