BENGALURU: Isro, which has been analysing the data from the failed PSLV-C62 from Jan 12, is expected to formally constitute a Failure Analysis Committee (FAC) to investigate the causes for the mishap and recommend corrective measures soon.It has been nearly a month since the failure, the second for PSLV in as many attempts, and so far, the analysis has been done by an expert committee that is being called “data analysis committee” or DAC internally, multiple sources confirmed to TOI.Isro chairman V Narayanan told TOI: “The expert committee is analysing the data,” without elaborating further. The DAC’s task, one scientist said, was to analyse telemetry, ground station records, log books and process documents, and place them on a single timeline before any higher-level inquiry begins. To do this, another scientist said that the DAC has about around six minutes of flight information, recorded at intervals as fine as two milliseconds. He described this as a large amount of material that could reveal the health of the vehicle up to the moment of the anomaly.Isro has not indicated a timeline for the next PSLV launch — built by the HAL-L&T consortium — which was initially expected in the first quarter of this calendar year. Multiple sources confirmed that the mission has been put on hold until the analysis of the PSLV-C62 failure is complete. “The committee [DAC] is in the final leg of its analysis and once it completes the process, the FAC will be formally set up. This could happen very soon, in just a few days,” one source said. Unlike the DAC, which is being headed for a former Isro chairman and comprises internal teams, the FAC will comprise experts from outside the Department of Space (DoS) too.Aside from analysing the data from the PSLV-C62 mission to determine what exactly occurred during the mission, the DAC’s second priority, the scientist said, was to check for any link with the previous failure (PSLV-C61 from May 2025), followed by a complete review of the 33-year-old PSLV vehicle. “Having two repeated failures, it is essential to revisit the entire PSLV once again,” the scientist said. He added that the role of the DAC was to provide all the information that the FAC may require to carry out its analysis.“There will be data from telemetry, ground station, tracking data, other information about processes and tests, all of which need to be analysed and presented properly for the FAC to begin work,” the scientist said.While Isro has not formally said that the launches of other launch vehicles, the agency has been carrying out stringent reviews ahead of all planned missions. As reported by TOI last week, it is gearing up for a GSLV mission, while the planned SSLV mission is said to be put on hold given that its second stage is the same as the PSLV’s third stage (PS3).On Jan 12, after a normal lift-off and second stage performance, the PSLV-C62 suffered a glitch in PS3, which led to the failure. “…Close to the end of the third stage, we saw little more disturbance in the vehicle roll rates and subsequently there was a deviation in the flight path. We are analysing the data and we shall come back at the earliest,” Narayanan had said soon after.
