The successive failures of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) have prompted the constitution of a high-level committee including former Principal Scientific Adviser K. Vijay Raghavan and former ISRO Chairman S. Somanath to investigate systemic organisational and process issues underlying the back-to-back mishaps. The PSLV-C61 failed on May 18, 2025, due to a third-stage ignition failure, destroying the EOS-09 strategic satellite. The PSLV-C62 repeated the same failure on January 12, 2026. This is the first time that an external committee has been constituted to investigate organisational and not merely technical failures at ISRO, marking a significant moment in India’s space governance.
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Five Important Key Points
- Both PSLV-C61 (May 2025) and PSLV-C62 (January 2026) failed due to third-stage ignition failures, raising concerns about quality control in component manufacture, procurement, and assembly.
- The new high-level committee consists of experts external to ISRO and is expected to submit its findings to ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan before April 2026.
- National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, also a member of India’s Space Commission, visited the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in connection with the PSLV-C62 failure, indicating strategic significance.
- The Failure Analysis Committee report on PSLV-C61 was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office but has not been made public, raising transparency concerns.
- India’s space ecosystem now involves multiple private companies, making accountability frameworks more complex than in ISRO’s earlier purely public sector era.
Background: The PSLV’s Role and Significance
The PSLV is ISRO’s most reliable workhorse launch vehicle, having successfully completed over 55 missions including the historic launch of 104 satellites in a single flight in 2017. It has been the backbone of India’s commercial launch business, placing satellites for foreign customers and enabling India’s own remote sensing, navigation, and strategic satellite programmes. The EOS-09 satellite destroyed in the PSLV-C61 failure was intended to serve the government’s strategic remote sensing needs, making its loss operationally significant beyond the financial cost.
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The consecutive failures are unprecedented in PSLV’s history and represent a serious setback for India’s ambitions in the global commercial launch market, a market being actively contested by SpaceX’s Falcon 9, Arianespace, and now China’s commercial launch providers.
The Nature of the Probe: Organisational Not Just Technical
What makes this probe qualitatively different from previous Failure Analysis Committees is its organisational scope. Previous committees have focused on technical root cause analysis, identifying which component failed and why. The new committee has been tasked with examining whether organisational problems, including issues in manufacturing processes, procurement systems, quality assurance mechanisms, and accountability frameworks, contributed to the failures.
This shift in approach reflects a mature understanding that technological failures in complex systems are rarely purely technical in origin. They often reflect deeper organisational pathologies, including communication failures between departments, inadequate quality control checks, procurement shortcuts, and diffused accountability in multi-agency or multi-company supply chains.
With India’s space ecosystem now involving private companies under the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) framework established in 2020, the probe will also need to examine how accountability is maintained when private suppliers are involved in critical component manufacture or assembly.
Constitutional and Governance Dimensions
Space activities in India are governed under the Space Activities Bill, which has been pending parliamentary approval for several years. The absence of a comprehensive legal framework for space activities creates gaps in accountability, liability, and oversight that become particularly visible when failures occur. The probe committee’s findings may provide important inputs for finalising and enacting a comprehensive Space Activities Act.
The Department of Space, which oversees ISRO, functions under the Prime Minister’s Office, reflecting the strategic importance of space programmes for national security, economic development, and scientific advancement. The constitution of a committee at the initiative of the NSA and the Space Commission signals that the failures are being viewed not just as technical setbacks but as potential vulnerabilities in India’s strategic capabilities.
Economic and Strategic Implications
India’s commercial space launch market aspirations depend heavily on PSLV’s demonstrated reliability. Two consecutive failures significantly damage India’s credibility with foreign satellite customers, who can choose from multiple reliable international launch providers. ISRO’s commercial arm, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), has contracts with international customers that may be affected.
More critically, the destruction of EOS-09, intended for strategic remote sensing, creates a capability gap in India’s surveillance and earth observation infrastructure that has security implications. Filling this gap requires a successful PSLV mission or an accelerated timeline for ISRO’s next-generation launch vehicles.
The investment in India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) and the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme may also be affected if fundamental quality control issues are found to be systemic across ISRO’s launch vehicle programmes.
Transparency and Public Accountability
A major governance concern highlighted by this episode is the lack of public disclosure of Failure Analysis Committee reports. In contrast to NASA’s Challenger and Columbia disaster investigation reports, which were published in full and became important documents for aerospace safety globally, ISRO’s failure reports are kept confidential. The PSLV-C61 Failure Analysis Committee report was sent to the Prime Minister’s Office but not publicly released before the PSLV-C62 launch, raising questions about whether findings were adequately acted upon.
Greater transparency in failure investigation processes would not only improve public accountability but also contribute to the global aerospace knowledge base, enhancing India’s standing in the international space community.
Way Forward
The committee’s findings should be acted upon promptly and its recommendations implemented before the next PSLV launch. ISRO should establish a permanent, standing quality assurance board with external independent members to conduct ongoing reviews of manufacturing, procurement, and assembly processes. A comprehensive Space Activities Act should be enacted to establish clear accountability frameworks. ISRO should also consider publishing summary findings of failure analysis reports to improve institutional credibility and public trust.
Relevance for UPSC and SSC Examinations
This topic is directly relevant for UPSC Prelims under Science and Technology and for Mains GS-III covering Space Technology, ISRO missions, and Science and Technology governance. Questions on PSLV, ISRO’s launch vehicle portfolio, IN-SPACe, NewSpace India Limited, and India’s space policy frequently appear in both Prelims and Mains examinations. For the Essay paper, themes of institutional accountability and transparency in public sector organisations are relevant. SSC aspirants should note ISRO’s organisational structure, key missions, and India’s space programme milestones.