On the morning of January the 11th PSLVC62 launch took off at 4:48:30 AM UTC from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India.
The launch went nominal up to close to the 3rd stage burn-out time, and then a non nominal behavior of PSLV was detected.
A few minutes after the launch anomaly our spacecraft, KID, transmitted data to our ground segment.
This is the flight report that presents and explains the findings of what those data meant, and our reconstruction of what happened.
KID was supposed to be launched to orbit with the PSLV rocket on the C62 mission. You can find more info on the mission here: https://www.isro.gov.in/Mission_PSLV_C62.html
KID was going to remain coupled to the launcher during the orbital arc in which the launcher was going to deploy its passenger satellites; at the end of such phase, the launcher was going to perform a deorbiting maneuver to get on a trajectory returning towards Earth. After the maneuver, KID was supposed to separate and start its independent flight along the deorbiting arc. The deorbiting arc would’ve lasted around 30 min, and it would’ve been the phase outside the atmosphere in which customers were going to carry out their payload activities.
At 120km of altitude KID would’ve reached the theoretical limit of the atmosphere with a velocity of almost 7900 m/s, and an angle of -1.5º with respect to the horizon (this angle is called “flight path angle”); at around 80km the atmospheric density becomes significant, and the hypersonic atmospheric heating starts, blocking radio transmissions roughly down to 60km of altitude. After losing and reacquiring radio link KID was supposed to keep transmitting until falling into the ocean at the end of its mission.
The key phase for our technical demonstration was indeed the phase within the atmosphere; the key phase for our customers was outside the atmosphere.
To visualize a bit better how was KID placed on the launcher, a couple of public pictures
