India Fails to Deploy Earth Monitoring Satellite, ISRO Mission Ends in Disappointment

India’s renowned space agency ISRO faced a significant failure on May 18, 2025, as its PSLV-C61 mission could not successfully deploy the EOS-09 Earth Observation Satellite into orbit. The rocket lifted off at 5:59 AM from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

The initial two stages of the launch performed successfully, but a technical malfunction in the third stage prevented the rocket from achieving its target orbit, resulting in the loss of the satellite.

ISRO Chairman S. V. Narayanan confirmed the failure and announced the formation of a technical investigation committee to probe the issue thoroughly.

The EOS-09 satellite was equipped with advanced C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), enabling all-weather, day-and-night Earth observation. It was intended to support agriculture, forestry, water resource monitoring, and natural disaster management.

The setback comes after ISRO’s past achievements, including its successful Mars Orbital Mission, marking this as a rare failure in its space journey.