"Naughty Boy" GSLV behaves under boss

"The naughty has performed well under the master's leadership." This was an ode to Isro Chairman Dr K Sivan from the GSLV Project Director S Somanath, who is also the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

GSLV, the rocket that carried GSAT-6A satellite on Thursday, is nick-named "naughty boy" as only six of its earlier 11 launches have been successful. And the "naughty boy" started behaving well after Dr Sivan was given in-charge of handling the projects related to GSLV in 2011 by then Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan.

It was only after Dr Sivan took charge, the GSLV launches became more reliable and the Isro began trusting the launch vehicle. The first flight in 2001 was a partial failure, and the next two flights were successful. Back in 2011, the GSLV had a very troubled past. The vehicle suffered four failures in succession.

And on Thursday, Dr Sivan was a very happy man. The naughty boy he tamed years ago behaved quite well during the first launch of his master's tenure as Isro Chairman. Almost all scientists, including Somanath, who spoke after the successful launch, credited Dr Sivan for GSLV's reliability as a vehicle.

Perfect orbit

"Perfect orbit has been achieved today. The naughty boy tamed by Dr Sivan is behaving very well under his leadership," Somanath told the scientists as they erupted in loud cheers.

Congratulating the team, P Kunhikrishnan, Director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, said the mission had demonstrated GSLV's capability as an operational launcher.