What went wrong with ISRO's GSLV-F10 rocket: 7 points

1. The 52-metre tall GSLV-F10 rocket carrying earth observation satellite EOS-03 was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, at 5.43 am on Thursday. 

2. After the launch, the first and second stages of the mission were successful, but owing to a technical problem, the cryogenic upper stage ignition did not happen. 

3. Cryogenics is the study of the production and behaviour of materials at extremely low temperatures (below -150 degrees Celsius) and the cryogenic stage is the last stage of space launch vehicles which makes use of cryogenics  to lift and place the heavier objects in space. And in this case, GSLV-F10 rocket was supposed to place satellite EOS-03 in space. 

4. Speaking about the complexity of this stage, veteran space scientist G Madhavan Nair said, "This is a very complex mission. Normally, the cryogenic stage is the most difficult one compared to all other rocket propulsions." 

5. Mr Nair, during whose tenure of six years from 2003 as ISRO Chairman 25 successful missions were accomplished, indicated that setbacks of this kind is not unusual and said ISRO should not lose heart. 

6. "This is the eighth launch of cryogenic stage. The first one was a problem (unsuccessful). Subsequently, all other launches turned in text-book performance. There is a finite possibility of failure with any such complex system. We need not be disappointed. But at the same time, we should go to the root cause (of the failure) and fix it so that we don't repeat," said Mr Nair. 

7. He added that ISRO had mastered the cryogenic technology over the years and its track record on this count is not that bad compared to European countries and Russia where failure of cryogenic stage was in the range of about 20 per cent.

Read More: It's a shock , says ex-ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair on GSLV launch setback