India’s attempt to place a satellite in orbit failed due to a problem with the rocket

“The PSLV-C62 mission was a victim of an anomaly at the end of its third stage burn. A detailed analysis is underway,” ISRO announced on the X network.

On May 18, its launcher also failed to launch an observation satellite into orbit.

The four-stage PSLV rocket, on its 64th flight, took off at 10:18 am (4:48 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on the island of Sriharikota, but later encountered a technical problem.

“The vehicle behaved as expected until the end of the third stage combustion,” the ISRO chief explained on national television.

“At the end of this third stage, we observed disturbances and the vehicle deviated from its flight path”, he added without giving more details, in particular about the destination of the satellites carried by the rocket.

India placed a probe in orbit around Mars in 2014 and took a robot to the lunar surface in 2023. Now, ISRO aims to send an astronaut to Earth orbit in 2027.