The Crash

Public lecture and interaction at the DMC Auditorium, Darbhanga

23 December 2012

When you set out on difficult missions, they often bring difficult challenges that may sometimes produce temporary setbacks. The test of humanity is accepting failure and continuing to try until you achieve success. Managing failure is the ability that is the essence of leadership. Let me now share an experience in this regard from my professional life.

When I think of Prof. Satish Dhawan, many instances of his leadership come to mind. I was project director for the first experimental launch of SLV-3. On 10 August 1979, the vehicle took off beautifully at T-0 and the first stage went as predicted. The second stage was initiated but, within a few seconds, we witnessed the vehicle tumbling and we lost the flight in the Bay of Bengal. It was 8 a.m. The whole team—despite having worked all through the previous day and night, in addition to many preceding days of hard work—was busy collecting data and trying to establish the reason for the failure. Meanwhile, I was called by Prof. Dhawan to attend a press conference. Before the press conference, Prof. Dhawan told me that he was going to handle the situation, but that I should be present along with many of the senior scientists and technologists.

The room was full of people from the media and an atmosphere of gloom was prevalent. Many questions were asked, some very powerful and thoughtful and, of course, there was criticism. Prof. Dhawan announced, ‘Friends, today we had the experimental launch of SLV-3 to put the Rohini satellite in orbit. It was a partial success. It is our first mission with multiple technologies in a launch vehicle. We have proved many technologies in this launch but we still have to prove some more. We have stumbled but not fallen flat. Above all, I realize my team members have to be given all the technological support for the next mission to succeed.’ Subsequently, a failure analysis board established the cause and we proceeded with the preparations for the second launch.

The second SLV-3 mission took place on 18 July 1980. It was six-thirty in the morning. The whole nation’s attention was on the Sriharikota High Altitude Range (SHAR) launch complex, which has now been named after Prof. Dhawan as a tribute. The mission teams were busy during the countdown and carefully watching the flight sequence. At T-0, the vehicle took off and we witnessed a textbook trajectory. After nearly 600 seconds of the flight, I realized that every stage had given the required velocity including the fourth stage. I made an announcement, ‘Mission director calling all stations. The SLV-3 has given the required velocity, and right altitude to put the satellite Rohini in orbit. Our down range stations and global stations will get the orbit of the satellite within an hour.’ There was thunderous applause from the station and the visitors’ gallery.

The most important thing happened after that. There was another press conference. But this time, Prof. Dhawan did not handle the press; he asked me, along with the other team members, to talk to them.

There are two messages I would like to convey here. The first is one of resilience and the courage to return from a setback. And the second is of the role of a leader in managing failure. When there is success, the leader should give credit to the team. When failure comes, the leader should absorb the failure and protect the team. I had not come across this beautiful education of failure management in any of the textbooks written by any of the institutes at that time.