National Security Advisor Ajit Doval had paid a visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here last week, reportedly in connection with the January 12 failure of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C-62 (PSLV-C62) mission.
According to VSSC sources, Mr. Doval had a meeting with VSSC Director A. Rajarajan and the Deputy Directors during his visit. The visit assumes significance given the back-to-back failures of PSLV missions on May 18, 2025, and January 12, 2026.
For long, PSLV had been hailed as the “trusted workhorse” of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), given its spectacular success rate. VSSC is the nodal facility of ISRO for launch vehicles.
Following the PSLV C-61 launch, ISRO had posted on X that “PSLV-C61 performance was normal till 2nd stage. Due to an observation in the 3rd stage, the mission could not be accomplished.” The report of the Failure Analysis Committee for this mission is yet to be made public.
Following the failure of the PSLV C-62 mission, ISRO had announced that the mission had encountered an anomaly during the end of the PS3 stage, and that a detailed analysis had been initiated.
The PSLV-C61 mission, which marked the 63rd flight of the PSLV, had as its payload the EOS-09 satellite. The PSLV-C62 mission had on board 16 satellites with the EOS-N1 satellite as the primary payload.
Published – February 03, 2026 08:33 pm IST
