Successive failures of PSLV have exposed gaps in quality assurance in India's space programme. Examine the causes and suggest institutional reforms for launch reliability.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), ISRO's "workhorse", has failed on consecutive flights, PSLV-C61 (2025) and PSLV-C62 (January 2026). C62 suffered an anomaly in its third stage (PS3). This shows that the weakness lies in quality-assurance systems rather than in one random fault, and the fix needs institutional reform as well as engineering [2].

Causes of the failures

• Technical (propulsion): C62 failed at the end of PS3 operation. It was carrying DRDO's EOS-N1 and 15 co-passenger satellites on a commercial NSIL flight [2].
• Manufacturing and quality control: ISRO's corrective rework of PS3 covers design margins, raw material acceptance criteria and assembly procedures [1]. Two of these three are production issues. This shows that the old acceptance norms let substandard material or workmanship through.
• Incomplete closure of lessons: the same stage being reworked after two failures suggests the first failure review did not fully find or fix the root cause before the next launch [1].
• Over-dependence on one vehicle: when PSLV was grounded, the launch schedule was disrupted and missions were deferred [3].
• Limited transparency: few failure-analysis findings were made public. This limited outside scrutiny and the confidence of customers.

Institutional reforms for launch reliability

• Independent verification: the National Level Expert Committee's corrective actions should be checked by a body outside the design team. Government has already made return to flight conditional on carrying them out [3].
• Lot-wide qualification: test motors from several production batches, not just one. The November 2026 ground static test at SDSC-SHAR is necessary but not sufficient [1].
• Supplier and material audits: standard acceptance norms should be applied across the industry supply chain as private manufacturing grows under the Indian Space Policy 2023.
• Accountability through disclosure: publish a redacted root-cause summary and share the full report with the Parliamentary Standing Committee in confidence.
• Mandatory sign-off rule: no strategic or human-rated mission (e.g. Gaganyaan) should fly until the actions from the previous failure are certified closed.

Taken together, the causes come from design, production and governance, so a one-stage fix is not enough. If ISRO combines engineering rigour with independent oversight and calibrated transparency, it can restore PSLV's credibility. That will help secure India's strategic needs and its place in the commercial launch market, in line with SDG-9 (industry and innovation).