News Desk – India’s space programme faced a major setback on January 12, 2026, when ISRO’s PSLV-C62 mission failed, and all 16 satellites on board were lost, even though the rocket lifted off successfully from Sriharikota.
The 260-tonne PSLV-DL rocket was launched at 10:17 AM and performed well during the first two stages. The separation also happened smoothly, and everything looked normal at first.
But after the third stage started, mission control stopped receiving signals from the rocket. Soon, it became clear that the satellite could not be placed into orbit.
ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said that the rocket worked normally until the end of the third stage, but then a problem in its movement and direction was noticed. He added that engineers are now studying the data to find out what went wrong.
The rocket was carrying DRDO’s main satellite EOS-N1 (Anvesha) for sea surveillance, along with 15 other small satellites from Indian students, private companies, and one from Spain. The mission was supposed to place them into an orbit about 505 km above Earth.
About eight minutes after launch, the rocket’s path changed and the mission failed. ISRO confirmed that the rocket did not follow its planned route. A Failure Analysis Committee will now investigate the reason.
This is the second PSLV failure in just eight months, after the PSLV-C61 mission failed last year. The PSLV rocket had a very strong success record before this, with 63 successful missions and only rare failures.
The back-to-back failures have raised concerns, especially about the third stage of the rocket, which uses solid fuel.
This setback may affect commercial satellite launches and plans for future missions in 2026, including navigation satellites and preparations for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission.
ISRO has said it will study the problem quickly and fix it, and will work to return to normal launch schedules soon.
