Indian space agency fails to launch satellite mission due to technical issue

ANKARA

India’s attempt to launch a new Earth observation satellite into orbit failed Sunday due to a technical issue during the third stage of flight, the country’s space agency said.

V. Narayanan, head of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), said the PSLV-C61 launch vehicle suffered a drop in chamber pressure during its third stage, ultimately causing the mission to fail.

"Today we attempted a launch of the PSLV-C61 vehicle. The vehicle is a 4-stage vehicle. The first two stages performed as expected. During the third stage, we are seeing observation, and the mission could not be accomplished," Narayanan was quoted by local news agency Asian News International.

"After analysis, we shall come back," he added.

The EOS-09 Earth observation satellite took off on board the PSLV-C61 launch vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, on Sunday morning.

Including Sunday’s failure to launch, this is the third setback in Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) missions for the ISRO, with the first being in 1993.

India has launched satellites for itself and other countries since the 1960s, in addition to putting one in orbit around Mars in 2014.

In August 2023, India became the fourth country—after Russia, the US, and China—to land an unmanned craft on the moon.

Writing by Aamir Latif