800-kg weather balloon crashes from space in Nagar Kurnool district
The entire apparatus including the balloon and the machine, weighing around 800 kg, was sent into space on February 17 to collect weather information
MAHABUBNAGAR: A plastic balloon machine sent into space by the Indian Space Research organization (ISRO) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research to collect weather data crashed in Telangana on Sunday. The incident happened near Tarnikal village in Kalavakurti mandal of Nagar Kurnool district.
The entire apparatus including the balloon and the machine, weighing around 800 kg, was sent into space on February 17 to collect weather information. But for reasons unspecified as of now, it crashed and fell in an open agricultural field near Tarnikal. With the villagers alerting them, Kalvakurti CI Syedulu informed the ISRO. The officials of the space research institute in turn asked the police to ensure that no one went near the area where the machine parts lay scattered.
Representatives of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research reached there on Sunday evening and began investigating the balloon’s crash. Even as a detailed probe is on to ascertain the reason, the authorities cite unspecified technical glitches as the reason for the weather machine’s crash-landing.