Dr. Nandkumar M. Kamat
I have been watching the live telecasts of all ISRO launches, so this article is written after studying the recently failed launch.
The recent sequence of failures involving the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has unsettled India’s space and strategic community in a way that routine launch mishaps usually do not. The concern arises not merely from the fact of failure but from the pattern: two consecutive missions, both using the same launch vehicle family that has historically been regarded as one of ISRO’s most reliable systems, and both carrying payloads with clear military and strategic relevance. When such failures cluster around similar phases of flight and when the payloads are linked to surveillance, navigation, and defense preparedness, it becomes legitimate to ask questions that extend beyond narrow engineering explanations.
The first setback involved the loss of an advanced Earth observation satellite equipped with a synthetic aperture radar. SAR capability is strategically significant because it allows imaging regardless of cloud cover or daylight, making it invaluable for border monitoring, maritime surveillance, and reconnaissance. The second failure followed within months, this time involving a mission that included a hyperspectral Earth observation satellite associated with defence research and operational users. Hyperspectral sensors add another layer of capability by enabling fine material discrimination and the detection of camouflaged or concealed objects
in various fields.
Both missions reportedly encountered anomalies during the latter part of the third stage of the flight phase. In one case, a fall in the chamber pressure was identified, and in the other, disturbances in vehicle dynamics and deviations from the expected trajectory were noted near the end of the third-stage operation. For a launch system with a long record of success, repeated problems that emerge in the same stage naturally draw attention. Engineers will first and rightly look inward at design margins, manufacturing consistency, quality assurance processes, and operational discipline. However, strategic planners, whose concern is assured access to space under all conditions, are compelled to ask an additional question. In an era where space systems are openly described as contested and competitive, external interference could be a contributing factor. This question must be addressed with caution. Rockets fail for many reasons that have nothing to do with hostile actions. Spaceflight history is full of examples where a single overlooked flaw, subtle material issue, or procedural lapse destroyed missions worth billions. The default assumption in any serious inquiry must remain that internal technical causes are the most likely explanation, until proven otherwise.
Simultaneously, the nature of space systems has changed profoundly. Modern launch vehicles are no longer purely mechanical constructs governed solely by propulsion and their structures. They are cyber-physical systems embedded in a dense ecosystem of software, networks, suppliers, and ground infrastructures. This evolution expands the range of plausible failure mechanisms and the range of plausible threat vectors.
The idea that interference could occur during the later stages of a launch is not a science fiction. Electronic interference with navigation and communication signals is a documented phenomenon in other aerospace applications. High-altitude rockets and aircraft encounter degraded satellite navigation signals owing to intentional and unintentional interference. Although orbital launch vehicles rely primarily on inertial navigation systems to guard against such disruptions, inertial systems do not operate in complete isolation. They are integrated with other sensors and control logic and depend on software that must correctly interpret and reconcile inputs under rapidly changing conditions. The transition between stages is one of the most complex and sensitive periods of flight, involving changes in mass, thrust, guidance laws, and control authorities. A disturbance that coincides with this transition, whether internal or external, can have disproportionate consequences.
More plausible than direct mid-flight “remote control” is interference that occurs earlier, long before the launch day. The preparation of a space mission involves months or years of software development, system integration, testing, and configuration management (CM). A subtle compromise introduced at any of these stages can remain dormant through extensive ground testing and only manifest under the exact thermal, vibrational or dynamic conditions encountered in flight. Such a compromise need not involve dramatic code insertion or an obvious sabotage. It can take the form of altered parameters, corrupted calibration data, or changes in fault-handling logic that appear benign in isolation but interact catastrophically under specific circumstances. In complex systems, intent can often be hidden behind plausible explanations.
Supply chains represent another vulnerable area. Mission planning systems, telemetry processing, range safety networks, timing servers, and contractor equipment all interact with the vehicle before and during the launch. Disruption or manipulation at this level can influence outcomes without ever touching the flight hardware. In other critical infrastructure sectors, such as power grids and transportation systems, it is now widely accepted that cyber interference can produce physical effects while leaving ambiguous evidence. There is no inherent reason why space-launch infrastructure should be exempt from this reality. Against this backdrop, the hypothesis of sabotage can be framed in a disciplined and testable manner rather than as an accusation. The hypothesis states that a capable external actor may have interfered, through cyber, electromagnetic, or supply chain means, in a way that increased the probability of failure during a sensitive phase of flight, with the strategic effect of delaying or degrading military space capabilities while maintaining plausible deniability. Framed this way, the hypothesis makes predictions that can be examined against data. If such interference occurs, one might expect to see anomaly signatures that are difficult to reconcile with known internal failure modes alone, such as sensor discrepancies that do not align with the expected physical behaviour or control disturbances that appear synchronised across otherwise independent subsystems. One might also expect to find irregularities in ground-system logs, configuration management records, or supplier documentation associated with the affected sub-systems. Alternatively, if electromagnetic interference played a role, there could be measurable anomalies in the radiofrequency environment during the critical flight window that could be detected by sufficiently instrumented range assets.
It is equally important to recognise what would count against the sabotage hypothesis, however. A clear, continuous chain of causality linking a specific internal defect to the observed behaviour, supported by telemetry, test replication and physical inspection, would strongly favour an internal explanation. Therefore, would the evidence suggest that similar components or processes affect multiple missions in ways consistent with manufacturing or quality-control drift? The strategic implications of this debate are significant in several ways. Failure analysis in the contemporary space environment cannot be confined to propulsion, structures, and control algorithms. It must integrate cybersecurity, supply chain integrity, and electromagnetic resilience as standard components. Independent, compartmented security reviews should accompany technical investigations, not as an expression of distrust in engineers but as a recognition of the realities of modern strategic competition. Technologies that indirectly interfere with complex systems are available.
India’s space programme has earned a reputation through decades of disciplined engineering and incremental learning. The current setbacks, serious as they are, do not erase this legacy. However, they offer an opportunity to strengthen the programme by embracing a broader conception of risk. Whether the root causes prove to be purely internal or something more complex, the outcome should be a more resilient launch enterprise—one capable of delivering critical military and civilian capabilities reliably, even in a world where the line between accident and interference is increasingly difficult to draw.
