Opinion: Two failures too many for ISRO

THE Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has begun the year with a damp squib. A highly anticipated mission by the space agency, launched on January 12 from the space station at Sriharikota, failed. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launch this time was a dedicated commercial mission carrying satellites of customers from multiple countries as well as an Indian strategic satellite.Space is a risky business and failures are not uncommon. ISRO, like any other space agency, has had a fair share of them. But sometimes failure of space missions becomes a cause of worry and calls for deep introspection and a careful review. The present one falls in this category for several reasons.PSLV has had an impressive record of 63 flights, including those of missions like Chandrayaan and Mars Orbiter Mission. That is why ISRO prides itself on this rocket as its workhorse. While one or two unsuccessful missions may not be statistically significant, what is troublesome is that last week's failure was the second consecutive one for PSLV. The last launch of PSLV on May 18, 2025, met a similar fate. Both times, the anomaly was in the third stage of the rocket. Only a detailed failure analysis would reveal if the two failures are technically similar, but it is clear that the trouble spot is the third stage. ISRO has not revealed if it made any changes in its latest PSLV based on the analysis of the 2025 fiasco.The space agency has followed a robust system of conducting failure analysis, involving external experts as well. After every failure, this has been done and key findings have been made public. The latest example of this is the GSLV mission that failed in August 2021. The analysis found that the lower liquid hydrogen tank pressure at the time of ignition of the cryogenic stage, caused by the leakage in the vent and relief valve, resulted in the malfunctioning of the fuel booster turbo pump, leading to failure of the mission. No official information is available on whether a failure analysis of the May 2025 PSLV mission was conducted, or what its findings were. This is a dangerous deviation for ISRO from its own systemic tradition of maintaining a basic level of openness and transparency.Apart from the two consecutive PSLV failures, ISRO has suffered a third setback in the past year. It was not a rocket failure but a satellite failure. On January 29, 2025, the agency completed a century in the launches from its Sriharikota base with a new launch of GSLV. After the launch, ISRO announced that GSLV successfully injected the NVS-02 navigation satellite into the intended transfer orbit and that "the orbit was achieved with a high degree of precision." A few days later, the agency said that while the satellite's solar panels were deployed and communication with the ground station established, the satellite could not be raised to its designated slot because the valves that allow the oxidiser to fire the onboard thrusters did not open.The three failed missions in the past year have serious implications for ISRO as well as its domestic and foreign customers. The three Indian satellites lost as a result of these failures happen to be key military satellites. The NVS-02, which could not be placed in its intended orbit after the January 2025 launch, was a navigation satellite to provide both standard positioning services as well as "restricted services." The satellite lost due to the PSLV failure last year was EOS-09, which was designed to yield remote-sensing data for agencies engaged in operational applications. It had a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload capable of providing images under all-weather conditions. The PSLV this month carried the EOS-N1 Earth Observation satellite (dubbed Anvesha), developed by defence research agencies.The loss of three strategic space assets in one year should be a wake-up call for the security and defence agencies, given their push for military applications of space. The tri-service Defence Space Agency, based in Bangalore, has plans for as many as 52 military satellites over the next five years under the third phase of the Space-Based Surveillance (SBS) project. This objective cannot be achieved without ISRO, even if satellites can be fabricated and supplied by private companies.The consecutive PSLV failures will adversely hit ISRO's commercial business. The mission this month was carrying 15 satellites of Indian and foreign customers, besides EOS-N1. The list included a joint UK-Thai satellite, five satellites of Dhruva Space, including the one from Nepal, KID (Kestrel Initial Technology Demonstrator) developed by a Spanish company supported by the European Space Agency, five satellites from AlltoSpace of Brazil and two other small ones from Indian customers.A lot was riding on PSLV for Dhruva and other Indian startups. They must have lost a great deal of money, besides time and opportunity costs. Satellites can take anything from a few months to a few years to be fabricated, depending on their size. Even if companies can quickly fabricate replacement satellites, they will have to wait a long time for a slot on PSLV. Apart from this, consecutive failures could hike insurance costs as the reliability record of the rocket has taken a hit. This, in turn, will push up project costs.The immediate task at hand for ISRO is to review future PSLV flights in light of the two failures in a row. In a few weeks, the first PSLV built by an industrial consortium led by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Larsen & Toubro is slated to be launched. There are several other missions planned for the year, like the first uncrewed orbital test mission under the Gaganyaan programme.ISRO will have to tread carefully as it moves ahead towards such ambitious missions as human spaceflight and the Bharatiya Antariksh Station . It should undertake a full-fledged review of its technical, quality and managerial processes. This is the only way to protect the credibility and reliability of the space programme.

Opinion: Two failures too many for ISRO

Three failed missions in the past year have serious implications for the space agency as well as its domestic and foreign customers.

Dinesh C Sharma

Opinion: Two failures too many for ISRO

Three failed missions in the past year have serious implications for the space agency as well as its domestic and foreign customers.

Dinesh C Sharma

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