India's flagship rocket fails for the second time in a row

"The PSLV - aka the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle - is an expendable medium launch rocket that India devised and has flown since 1993. ISRO has launched 64 of the rockets and chalked up 58 successes. This mission, PSLV-C62 / EOS-N1, employed the PSLV-DL variant of the rocket, which uses a pair of external boosters. Other PSLV variants use four or six external boosters. The mission was a commercial affair, with 15 payloads aboard."

"The payload that survived is called the KID Capsule and is an experimental craft designed to return to Earth from space. KID is the work of a company called Orbital Paradigm, which figures the world has plenty of launch capacity but little ability to de-orbit payloads such as products manufactured in space. The company hopes to create commercial return-to-Earth capability."

""The capsule endured a way steeper angle than the nominal mission was foreseeing (around -20° instead of -5°)," the post states. "It seems we entered in the atmosphere still coupled to the rocket upper stage." The capsule nonetheless released, at the hellacious speed of Mach 20 and experienced 28g of force - almost twice the nominal scenario. Despite those astounding forces, KID transmitted 190 seconds of telemetry, some of which indicate that its payloads remained at between 15°C and 30°C during the capsule's very rapid descent."

The PSLV-C62 / EOS-N1 mission using the PSLV-DL variant suffered a third-stage anomaly and failed to reach its intended orbit. The commercial flight carried 15 payloads; 14 were lost, including the Theos-2 Earth Observation satellite and AyulSat. The lone surviving payload, the KID Capsule from Orbital Paradigm, fell with the rocket's fourth stage and reentered at a much steeper angle than nominal, apparently still coupled to the upper stage. KID separated at about Mach 20, experienced roughly 28g, transmitted 190 seconds of telemetry showing payload temperatures of 15–30°C, but did not send customer data. ISRO has commenced an investigation into the failure.

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