ISRO’s EOS-09 Satellite Launch Fails: What Went Wrong?

ISRO’s EOS-09 Mission Suffers Setback

In a disappointing turn of events, India’s space agency, ISRO, announced the failure of its EOS-09 satellite launch on Sunday, May 18. This was ISRO’s 101st launch mission, and while the first two stages of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C61) performed as expected, a problem during the third stage prevented the successful deployment of the EOS-09 satellite.

What Happened?

According to ISRO Chairman V Narayanan, the four-stage PSLV rocket functioned normally until the second stage. However, during the third stage, an anomaly was detected, causing the mission to be aborted. While ISRO hasn’t publicly disclosed the exact nature of the issue, they confirmed that everything was going smoothly until the third stage.

Just half an hour after the launch, ISRO tweeted on X, ‘Today 101st launch was attempted, PSLV-C61 performance was normal till 2nd stage. Due to an observation in 3rd stage, the mission could not be accomplished,’

Details of the Mission

The PSLV-C61 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 5:59 am carrying the EOS-09 satellite. The mission’s objective was to place the Earth observation satellite into a Sun Synchronous Polar Orbit (SSPO).

EOS-09 was designed to provide remote sensing data for various operational applications, effectively acting as a repeat satellite of EOS-04. It was intended to enhance the frequency of Earth observation data available to users.

Looking Ahead

ISRO has stated that a thorough analysis will be conducted to determine the root cause of the third stage anomaly. The agency has a history of learning from setbacks and continually improving its launch capabilities.