The Morning Brief What Went Wrong With India's Most Reliable Rocket?
Jan 20, 2026
Chethan Kumar, a space journalist at The Times of India, dives deep into the recent back-to-back failures of India's trusted PSLV rocket. He explains the mysterious anomalies that have shaken ISRO's confidence and discusses the implications for their ambitious future missions like Gaganyaan. Chethan highlights the concerns over vendor quality and the agency’s stretched resources, urging a return to transparency. With private-sector launches on the horizon, can ISRO restore the PSLV's legendary reliability before the upcoming private mission?
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Unprecedented Repeat Third-Stage Failures
- Two consecutive PSLV failures (May 2025 and Jan 2026) both involved third-stage (PS3) anomalies and lost critical national security satellites.
- The repeat problem in the same stage is unprecedented for PSLV and raises deeper technical concern beyond random rocket failures.
High Reliability Meets Morale Hit
- PSLV has flown 64 times with a ~92% success rate, so two back-to-back failures significantly dent organizational morale and confidence.
- ISRO ran unusually exhaustive testing and seven mission readiness reviews for C62, highlighting how concerning this failure is despite extra precautions.
Seven Readiness Reviews, Still A Failure
- For PSLV C62, ISRO conducted about seven Mission Readiness Reviews instead of the usual three, and exhaustively tested the PS3 nozzle.
- Despite this extra scrutiny and hundreds of tests, the rocket still failed, showing how unpredictable launches can be.