Chennai, Jan 20 (.) A serious course correction in technical, process quality, testing and security gaps will enable Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to come up again, says Tapan Misra, retired Director of Space Applications Centre, ISRO.
Referring to the three consecutive failures of India’s strategic satellite launch missions and without terming them as enemy action Misra said: “One failure is accident. Two failures can be construed as coincident. Three consecutive failures are symptomatic of a pattern if nothing else fits. It calls for serious introspection and honest analysis of all possible technical and non technical, both internal and external, causes.”
“A serious course correction in technical, process, quality, testing and managerial gaps and above all security gaps, will definitely enable ISRO to resurrect like Phoenix,” Misra added.
Misra is considered the father of the Indian SAR satellite.
He said on Jan 29, 2025, NVS-02 a military NAVIC satellite, was launched by ISRO. The rocketing was a success, but the NVS-02 orbit could not be raised to geostationary orbit due to the failure of an oxidiser valve in the apogee boost motor.
“Surprisingly, it never failed anytime earlier. This time, unusually, both main and redundant control failed,” Misra said.
Another military reconnaissance C band SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite RISAT-1B, rechristened as EOS-09 was flown on the PSLV-C61 rocket on May 18, 2025.
“The launch failed due to an unusual technical issue in the third stage with solid motor, which experienced a drop in chamber pressure, that too at the fag end of the burn. Solid motor never fails. It was the first failure in the history of operational launch of PSLV,” Misra said.
The latest failure was on Jan 12, 2026, when PSLV-C62 rocket carrying Anvesha satellite belonging to DRDO failed due to anomaly in third solid stage burn at the end. The failure was similar to that of PSLV-C61 rocket.
On the other hand, the NISAR –an Indo-US joint project- satellite launch by GSLV-F16 rocket and another American satellite BlueBird Block 2 launch by LVM3 rocket on Dec 24, 2025 were a success.
For ISRO, the last year was a mixed bag of failures and successes. Probably and unfortunately, the worst in terms of number of failures, that too in the well-proven launcher like PSLV, Misra remarked.
“I trust ISRO for its rise as I know its strengths like the back of my palm. ISRO has definitely gone through a bad time. But the good thing about the bad times is that they do not last long. Looking forward to brighter days ahead for ISRO. No doubt, the Crown jewel of the nation will get back its shine sooner than later,” Misra hoped.
. VJ SAS PRP