​A brittle shell: On ISRO and transparency

A venerable institution, facing accusations of opacity, decided to stun its detractors with some transparency. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made public the report of a technical committee, constituted to analyse why the NVS-02 satellite, which was launched aboard a GSLV rocket on January 29, 2025, could not be placed in its intended orbit. Until this week, there was no official explanation why this had happened. An accompanying press statement — not a report it must be noted — surmised that an ‘apex’ committee had concluded that a signal meant to activate a key valve in the engine’s oxidiser line never reached it. This valve is crucial for firing the engine to raise the spacecraft’s orbit and this likely happened because at least one connection in the electrical connector — in both the primary and backup lines — came loose or failed, preventing the signal from getting through. All of this is useful information, but only for ISRO to be cautious in future missions. In fact, the press statement continued, these learnings were “successfully implemented” in a November 2, 2025 mission by the LVM-3 M5 launch vehicle that placed the GSAT-7R, India’s heaviest communication satellite, in its intended orbit. When the ISRO releases a statement on an event from a year ago, it must strive to illuminate rather than be seen to declassify under duress. It should have revealed whether the connection came loose because of an oversight; whether multiple levels of personnel — or machines — who scrutinise every nut and screw on the assembly line failed, or if a manufacturing anomaly had compounded over time in a way that would have escaped detection even by the most vigilant overseers.

At the other end, doing so reinforces public confidence in the institution. It should be able to reveal such information without blaming individuals or withholding proprietary or strategic information. Making such ‘Failure Analysis’ reports public, as they are called, used to be a routine affair. However, ISRO seems to have retreated into a shell following the back-to-back failures of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles in January and in May 2025. In fact, beyond the technical committees— another committee has been set up to probe “systemic issues” underlying the failures of these rockets — ISRO should not choose insularity at a time when traditional business models all over the world are being disrupted.