ISRO's PSLV-C62 mission fails; 16 satellites lost
ISRO's latest rocket launch, PSLV-C62, didn't go as planned on January 12, 2026.
The mission was carrying India's EOS-N1 satellite and 15 others from countries like the UK, Spain, and Brazil—but a glitch in the third stage meant none made it to their intended orbit.
However, the Spanish KID capsule survived reentry and transmitted data for a brief period.
This is ISRO's second similar setback in less than a year.
What exactly happened?
The rocket's first two stages worked fine, but trouble hit during the third stage: a roll disturbance near burnout caused the rocket to tumble off course.
As a result, it missed its target orbit entirely.
One tiny win: Spain's KID capsule
Even with the failure, Spain's small KID capsule managed to separate and send back reentry data for over three minutes under intense conditions—kind of a silver lining in an otherwise tough day for ISRO.
Why does this matter?
Back-to-back failures like this could pause future launches until at least mid-February and might bump up insurance costs by up to 30%.
ISRO has set up a committee to dig into what went wrong.