16 satellites lost after India’s latest PSLV launch fails

Details: John Tanner; Category: Satellite Networks; 13 January 2026; 439 views

A launch of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on Sunday carrying the EOS-N1 Earth observation satellite and 15 other satellites for domestic and international customers ended in failure, with all satellites lost.

The PSLV-C62 mission for NewSpace India Limited – the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) – lost altitude six minutes after lifting off from Satish Dhawan Space Center when its third stage failed.

ISRO said in a statement it is analysing the data to see what exactly went wrong. A previous PSLV launch in May 2025 also experienced problems in the third stage. Prior to that launch, the PSLV has carried out 62 missions – most of them successfully – since its introduction in 1993.

According to Space News, in addition to the EOS-N1 satellite – which PSLV-C62 was also carrying the Theos-2 Earth observation satellite developed by SSTL in collaboration with Thailand, satellites for Indian company Dhruva Space, a diplomatic satellite for Nepal and five IoT satellites for Brazilian company AlltoSpace.