A committee that features Ok. VijayRaghavan, former Principal Scientific Advisor, and S. Somanath, former Chairman, India Space Research Organisation (ISRO), will probe “systemic issues” underlying the successive failures of ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
While technical committees probe and submit ‘failure analysis reports’ when mishaps happen, this committee, The Hindu has reliably learnt, will examine questions on whether or not “organisational” issues might have performed a task within the debacles involving the PSLV.
On January 12, 2026 the PSLV-C62 failed in its mission to ship 16 satellites into orbit, and crashed into the ocean after the third stage of the rocket failed to ignite. This was related to the May 18, 2025 failure of the PSLV-C61, through which, too, the third stage failed to fireplace, destroying in consequence the EOS-09 satellite tv for pc meant for the federal government’s strategic wants.
The committee members consist of consultants who’re exterior to the ISRO, and are anticipated to desk their findings to ISRO Chairman, V. Narayanan, earlier than April. On February 3, 2026, The Hindu reported that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, who can also be a member of India’s Space Commission, visited the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, reportedly in reference to the failure of the PSLV-C62 mission.
”A national-level professional committee has been constituted and is reviewing the rationale for the anomaly within the PSLV car,” the ISRO stated in an announcement to The Hindu.
The PSLV’s failures could be the core focus of the report, and the committee could be trying into the processes within the manufacture, procurement, and assembling of numerous parts of the rocket. This has implications for different rockets, too, The Hindu was informed, as a result of they’ve commonalities.
India’s house ecosystem now includes a number of non-public firms and, subsequently, the probe is not going to solely be about which half or element failed, and who was accountable, but additionally whether or not there’s a course of in place to repair accountability, and the way it could also be improved. A technical committee of the ISRO will first desk a report on the PSLV-C62 incident this week, The Hindu has learnt by dependable sources.
ISRO’s historic response to rocket failures has been to have a Failure Analysis Committee probe the explanations, and publicise its findings. This, nevertheless, has not taken place within the case of each the PSLV-C61 and PSLV-C62.
The Failure Analysis Committee report of the May 18 mishap was despatched to the Prime Minister’s Office earlier than the PSLV-C62 launch, however its particulars haven’t been made public.
The Failure Analysis Committee, constituted by the ISRO Chairman, is a physique of consultants inside ISRO to lead within the occasion of a significant incident. It is anticipated to reconstruct the chain of occasions main up to a failure, and suggest corrective motion earlier than the rocket is cleared to fly once more. The committee members embrace consultants inside ISRO in addition to related consultants from academia.
The PSLV is ISRO’s most profitable satellite tv for pc launch car, and since 1993, the house authority has maintained a hit price of over 90%, inserting almost 350 satellites into their meant orbits.
At a press convention on February 2, the Union Minister of State for Science and Technology, and Earth Sciences Jitendra Singh, stated {that a} “third party appraisal” was ongoing.
“It isn’t that we (the ISRO) are so unwise that we could not detect the reason for failures…this time, we are having a third party [appraisal] to create confidence, though we have expertise within ISRO for such analysis. Our probable next [launch] date, which we are ambitiously targeting, is June, after we satisfy ourselves that the problem is rectified. This year, we have 18 launches scheduled, with six of them involving private sector satellites. None has withdrawn their request to launch this means, trust is intact. Next year, we have three big foreign launches — Japan, the United States, and France- and none have shown apprehension. That means our credibility is intact,” Dr. Singh has stated.
(Inputs from Hemanth C.S., Bengaluru.)
Published – February 23, 2026 07:52 pm IST