Article Posted on : - May 24, 2015

ISRO PSLV rocket during launch. A file photo

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (PTI): Modern techniques are needed to detect faults before systems failure occurs in aircraft and rocket flights, a top scientist of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre has said.

"Both in aircraft and rocket flights, a fault is often detected when a failure happens. The result is catastrophic.

"We need modern techniques to detect faults before a system failure happens," VSSC Director M C Dathan said in Thiruvananthapuram on May 22.

Inaugurating the national conference of Astronautical Society of India (ASI), he said there are two most probable causes for failures in such complex systems. The first and foremost was not having a full understanding on how systems work.

"We may be able to operate systems well, but a thorough inside knowledge of the system will be missing," he said.

"The second is over attachment to some systems in the belief they will not fail and a general tendency to have implicit faith on foreign equipment, which makes us less keen on testing them," he said.

Dathan pointed out that one of the key aspects of the success of ISRO's first Mars mission was the huge amount of data analysis done to find out what had gone wrong on previous Mars missions and the meticulous precautions taken to prevent such failures.

P S Subramanyam, Director, Aeronautical Development Agency and Dr K Sivan, Director, Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre were among those addressed the conference.