The Hindu : It is a big tragedy, says Kasturirangan

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Sunday, Feb 02, 2003

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It is a big tragedy, says Kasturirangan

Bangalore Feb.1. The crash of the space shuttle Columbia, carrying Indian American, Kalpana Chawla, and six other astronauts is a "big tragedy," the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, K. Kasturirangan, said here tonight.

He said Ms. Chawla ``was an accomplished astronaut and NASA a robust organisation. It will sort out the problem and spring back."

"It is really shocking. There were seven precious lives on board. Personally, we never expected this'' he said.

On the technical aspects of landing, he said: ``the landing drill is very critical and needs very close control as velocity of a vehicle at the time of entry is about 17,500 kmph, which is about 25 times the speed of sound. So the direction of velocity vis-a-vis horizontal has to be so well controlled that the speed while landing can be captured. This creates a very high frictional heating of about 2000 degrees Celsius, that is why it is critical."

The former Atomic Energy Commission chief, R. Chidambaram, said he was very sorry to hear the sad news about Kalpana Chawla and other astronauts in the space tragedy.

The former ISRO chief, E. V. Chitnis, said it seemed that there were technical snags leading to deviations in the angle at which the spacecraft was supposed to enter into the earth's atmosphere. — PTI

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