What is the KID capsule? Know all about lone survivor of ISRO's PSLV mission

Spanish spaceflight company Orbital Paradigm's KID capsule was the lone survivor of the failed Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission that saw its time-tested PSLV rocket suffer a malfunction midflight.

Hours after ISRO declared an anomaly, Orbital Paradigm posted on social media that its KID capsule had survived miraculously.

"Our KID capsule, against all odds, separated from PSLV C62, switched on, and transmitted data. We're reconstructing trajectory. Full report will come," Orbital Paradigm posted on X.

KID was one of the 16 payloads of the PSLV C62 mission and survived the mishap long enough to separate from the launch vehicle and transmit data before crash-landing on Earth.

As an experiment, KID did not come with fully-fleshed out features. It had no propulsion system of its own, nor parachutes, and was not designed for recovery after landing.

Instead, KID's role was to separate after the PSLV rocket's fourth stage de-orbit maneuver and attempt to survive re-entry while transmitting data.

The Spanish company told Payload that KID separated from the PSLV rocket around 18 minutes after liftoff, likely as a result of the anomaly.

The demo craft survived peak forces of around 28Gs, while KID's thermal protection material was able to maintain a comfortable payload temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius, with the back, payload-facing side of the thermal protection material showed 85 degrees Celsius.

Speaking to the publication, Orbital Paradigm CEO Francesco Cacciatore said, "To transmit the data it means KID had to separate undamaged from the launcher, switch on, and connect to the RF link."

"The working theory we have is that KID fell back to Earth coupled to PSLV stage 4, and the thermal conditions triggered separation," he explained.

The survival of the KID capsule and it's success in transmitting data in many ways spells a success for Orbital Paradigm's first re-entry flight. That said, experiments slated to be conducted in microgravity could not be carried out due to the PSLV's failure and the premature loss of the satellite.

"The PSLV is a four-stage vehicle with two solid stages and two liquid stages. The performance of the vehicle up to the end of the third stage was expected. Close to the end of the third stage we are seeing more disturbance in the vehicle and subsequently, there was a deviation observed in the flight path," ISRO chief V Narayanan said, while the agency said it had started a detailed analysis of the mission data.