A Challenging Year for India's Space Agency
A difficult year has shaken confidence in India's space program. The Indian Space Research Organisation faced three mission failures between January 2025 and January 2026. This rare series of setbacks provides the agency with a crucial opportunity to pause, address underlying issues, and return stronger than before.
Unprecedented Back-to-Back Failures
It is unusual for ISRO to record three failures in a single year. The situation becomes even more remarkable when considering that the agency's most trusted launch vehicle stumbled twice in succession. Between January 2025 and January 2026, this exact scenario unfolded. Three missions involving strategic satellites failed, with two of them occurring back-to-back on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
The most recent incident happened on Monday, January 12, 2026. The PSLV-C62 mission failed to place its spacecraft into the intended orbit. For an organization that built its reputation on reliability, the past year delivered a significant jolt to its operations and standing.
Space exploration remains rocket science, with inherent complexities and risks. Technical teams are analyzing the cause of each failure thoroughly. Their investigations point toward broader challenges facing India's space program. Strategic, military, and commercial stakes have never been higher, placing additional pressure on the agency's operations.
Detailed Breakdown of Mission Failures
The first setback occurred on January 29, 2025, during what should have been a milestone celebration. ISRO's 100th launch mission, GSLV-F15, lifted off smoothly carrying the NVS-02 navigation satellite. The rocket performed exactly as expected during launch. The failure materialized later, while in orbit.
A critical valve responsible for feeding oxidizer to the liquid apogee motor did not operate according to design specifications. Without proper functioning of this motor, the satellite could not maneuver itself into its final operational orbit. The launch itself was flawless, but the mission ultimately failed.
When the Workhorse Stumbled
The next two failures proved more unsettling because they occurred during ascent and affected the same system. Both PSLV-C61 on May 18, 2025, and PSLV-C62 on January 12, 2026, experienced malfunctions in their third stage. This stage, known as PS3, is a solid motor that provides high-energy boost after second stage burnout.
The pattern of failure represented unfamiliar territory for ISRO. The PSLV had never failed twice consecutively before. Nor had the same stage been implicated repeatedly in mission failures.
Consequences arrived immediately and proved costly. PSLV-C61 carried EOS-09, also called Risat-1B, a radar imaging satellite critical for strategic surveillance. With its synthetic aperture radar payload, EOS-09 was designed to provide all-weather, day-and-night Earth observation capabilities.
The satellite would have improved revisit frequency over sensitive regions, meaning it could image the same spot on Earth more frequently. This capability proves crucial for monitoring dynamic events like floods or assessing crop health. Its loss created a gap that cannot be filled quickly.
Monday's failure compounded existing damage. PSLV-C62 was carrying Anvesha, or EOS-N1, another strategic asset. This satellite featured a hyperspectral imaging payload capable of analyzing reflected light across hundreds of narrow wavelength bands.
Such technology allows detailed identification of objects, materials, and activities on the ground. The satellite was meant to complement existing assets and sharpen situational awareness for defense establishments. Instead, it was written off minutes after launch.
For India's military planners, these losses carry concrete implications. Space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities remain thin. Losing two high-value satellites within eight months hurts operational readiness and pushes back timelines that were already stretched.
Global Context and Reputational Impact
For ISRO, the reputational impact cuts particularly deep because of what the PSLV represents. For nearly three decades, this rocket has served as the backbone of India's space program. It accounts for over sixty percent of all ISRO launches.
Its ability to place satellites into low Earth orbit, sun-synchronous orbit, and transfer orbits has made it the agency's most versatile workhorse. This vehicle carried Chandrayaan-1, the Mars Orbiter Mission, Aditya-L1, and hundreds of commercial payloads. Of nearly four hundred foreign satellites launched by India, the overwhelming majority rode on PSLV rockets.
This impressive legacy explains why back-to-back failures matter so significantly. For ISRO, reliability represents more than a technical metric. It serves as the measure and currency of trust with partners and stakeholders.
Global launch statistics provide some context for these challenges. Nearly half of all launch failures link to propulsion systems. Approximately two-thirds of propulsion-related failures occur in upper stages. In this sense, ISRO's troubles are not unique to the organization.
However, context does not soften the strategic impact of failures involving critical national assets that repeat within a short time span. The timing proves particularly uncomfortable as India's space environment has changed dramatically.
Strategic Gap Widening in New Space Era
The patient, incremental approach that defined ISRO's early decades worked in a different geopolitical era. It delivered credibility on modest budgets and built deep engineering expertise over time. Today, space represents no longer just a scientific or developmental domain. It has become a contested arena of power.
The numbers reveal stark realities. India operates fewer than a dozen dedicated defense satellites. The United States and China field constellations running into the hundreds, with each exceeding two hundred forty spacecraft. Russia operates more than one hundred spacecraft.
This gap extends beyond mere scale. It translates directly into how often a region can be observed, how quickly data can be relayed, and how reliably communications can be maintained during conflict situations.
India has made progress with platforms such as the Risat series and the GSAT-7 family, but significant gaps remain. The Army still lacks a dedicated satellite system of its own. NavIC, India's regional navigation system, remains only partially operational.
Of forty-four Earth observation satellites launched over the years, just twenty-one are currently active. ISRO's own projections call for around sixty Earth observation satellites within five years. Military requirements could push the total beyond one hundred satellites. At current launch rates and with recent failures, those targets appear quite ambitious.
Examining China's model underlines how far India still has to travel. Beijing maintains overlapping constellations that provide near-continuous coverage over land and sea, including contested waters. India relies on intermittent passes and stitched-together datasets, leaving potential blind spots.
In modern warfare, where decisions are made in minutes, this asymmetry matters significantly. Budgetary constraints add another layer of difficulty. India spends under two billion dollars annually on space activities. China's outlay is roughly eight times larger. NASA's budget exceeds India's by more than ten times.
Indian launch vehicles remain cost-competitive, but low launch frequency and long turnaround times dilute that advantage. Failures, even isolated ones, slow schedules further and complicate planning.
Commercial Ripple Effects and Market Position
A commercial dimension also deserves consideration. The PSLV's reputation has served as a key reason foreign customers trusted India with their payloads, especially small satellites. While commercial launch decisions factor in price, orbit availability, and scheduling, reliability remains paramount.
Insurance premiums, contractual clauses, and risk assessments are sensitive to recent performance records. Two failures do not erase decades of success, and the global launch market shows some forgiveness. Yet competition has intensified dramatically.
Dedicated small satellite launchers, reusable rockets, and rideshare options offered by foreign providers give customers more choice than ever before. Even a small dent in perceived reliability can push marginal customers elsewhere, especially when launch windows remain flexible.
This matters because ISRO's commercial arm and India's broader space economy ambitions depend on sustained credibility. The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle is still maturing. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and Launch Vehicle Mark-3 are being positioned for heavier and more complex missions, but their commercial cadence remains limited.
For now, the PSLV continues as the mainstay for both strategic and commercial launches. Any prolonged uncertainty around its performance would ripple across numerous plans and projects.
ISRO's Technical Depth and Recovery Capacity
None of these challenges diminishes ISRO's technical depth or its capacity to recover. The agency has navigated failures before and emerged stronger each time. What the past year underscores is the need for urgency in addressing current issues.
Technical reviews must be thorough, transparent, and swift. Production quality, testing regimes, and supply chains need close scrutiny, especially for systems that have long been considered mature and reliable.
Equally important is clarity of priorities. Strategic missions cannot be treated as just another payload. Launch cadence, redundancy, and backup planning must reflect their importance to national security and development.
In an era where space assets underpin military readiness, economic activity, and diplomatic standing, resilience matters as much as ambition. One year, six launches, three failures. That represents an uncomfortable tally for any space agency.
But it also provides a moment to reset and refocus. ISRO's credibility was built over decades through consistency and perseverance. Bouncing back strongly will require the same qualities, applied with greater speed and sharper focus on the challenges ahead.
