By R Anil Kumar
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ISRO planning to resume launch operations in May 2026
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Several Missions are planned in the financial year with the next launch scheduled in May, 2026: ISRO Chairman
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Return to Flight: The Mission will focus on returning the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) to Service
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Gaganyaan Progress: Work on the Gaganyaan mission including the Integrated Air Drop Test-2 (IADT-2) is progressing according to NavIC System: Development of the Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC) Satellite System is on track
Bengaluru, April 8, 2026. ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan indicated that the Space Agency will be returning to Spaceflight after a three month hiatus.
Speaking to R Anil Kumar on the Sidelines of International Conference on Spacecraft Mission Operations- SMOPS 2026, here, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan indicated that ISRO will be returning to spaceflight in May 2026.
Narayanan said, “We are working towards the immediate launches. This financial year is just starting. Lot of things are planned, and May we are going to have the launch.” The first flight of 2026 was unsuccessful with the upper stage of the PSLV-C62 veering off the flight path. This was the second, consecutive failure of ISRO’s workhorse rocket that has enjoyed a nearly flawless launch record so far. ISRO has not flown a mission since.
Responding to a question posed at the Lok Sabha a few days ago, the Minister of State for Space, Jitendra Singh had noted, “The factors that led to the recent deferments in scheduled Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launches, for the missions planned under the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is purely due to technical reasons.
In view of the failure observed in the PSLV-C62 mission, a National Level Expert Committee has been constituted to review the reason for anomaly in PSLV vehicle and recommend corrective measures.
PSLV TO. RETURN TO FLIGHT: PSLV will return to flight after implementing the corrective actions. SSLV has successfully completed the developmental flights and handed over to NSIL and Industry for production and launch.”
A packed launch schedule
ISRO was supposed to fly six missions in the last quarter of 2025-26. ISRO begins the financial year 2026-27 with a backlog of five flights.
The first flight is expected to be the GSLV F17 launch of the EOS-05 satellite for a strategic user, followed by the PSLV-C63 flight with the TDS-01 technology demonstrator satellite packed with novel technologies, followed by the PSLV N1 flight, the first PSLV rocket to be realised by private industries, to launch the EOS-10 satellite along with the Indo Mauritius Joint Satellite (IMJS) and the Leap-02 mission for Dhruva Space, carrying the Horus star tracker for the French company, Sodern.
The first operational flight of the SSLV L1 is also pending, which is a commercial flight for an NSIL customer. ISRO also has to launch the highly anticipated Gaganyaan G1 mission, an uncrewed flight test of the fully integrated hardware ISRO has developed for human spaceflight.”
