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An Indian launch to replace a faulty IRNSS satellite (India's version of GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, et al.) has failed:
On Aug. 31, 2017, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched its latest navigation satellite. During the flight, however, the payload fairing did not separate several minutes after liftoff like it was supposed to, leaving the spacecraft trapped inside the clamshell-like aerodynamic nose cone.
With the payload fairing (sometimes called the heat shield) still attached, that meant unneeded weight continued to travel uphill with the rocket. This caused the rocket to reach a lower than planned orbit of about 103 miles (167 kilometers) by 4,073 miles (6,555 kilometers). But worse, because the spacecraft was still encapsulated, the satellite was unable to be deployed away from the launch vehicle.
"During the flight, the heat shield has not separated," the operations director said after the navigation satellite was supposed to have deployed. "Further analysis will be carried out subsequently."
This was the eighth satellite launched for the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS). The IRNSS-1H satellite was meant to be a replacement for another satellite, IRNSS-1A, that was launched with faulty equipment in 2013. It was in July 2016 when the first of IRNSS-1A's three Rubidium atomic clocks failed. The other two were followed shortly after rendering the spacecraft useless for navigation purposes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Friday September 01 2017, @03:33PM
It is never good to see a failed launch. For those who are curious the launch vehicle is the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which has had a good track record otherwise (38 successes, now 2 failures, 1 partial failure).