ISRO’s Next Decade Challenge: From Spectacular Missions to Sustained Space Power

Over the last decade, the “Indian Space Research Organisation” has quietly built one of the most diverse and credible space programmes in the world — despite operating with a modest budget and a relatively small workforce. But as India stands on the cusp of human spaceflight, next-generation launch vehicles and deeper international collaboration, the very success of ISRO’s recent record is now raising tougher questions about capacity, governance and competitiveness.

A decade of dependable access to space

ISRO’s recent track record is defined by consistency as much as ambition. The “Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle” has made access to orbit almost routine, placing diverse payloads into multiple orbits with high reliability. This operational stability has allowed ISRO to pursue more complex missions without jeopardising its core launch services.

The soft landing of “Chandrayaan-3” on August 23, 2023, placed India among a small group of nations with proven lunar-landing capability. This was followed by “Aditya-L1”, which reached its halo orbit around the Sun–Earth L1 point in January 2024, giving India its first dedicated solar observatory. In July 2025, ISRO added a major international milestone by launching “NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar”, a billion-dollar climate and hazard-monitoring satellite developed jointly with NASA.

Why success itself is raising the bar

ISRO’s achievements have altered expectations — both domestically and globally. The narrative of modest beginnings no longer carries explanatory power when launches, deep-space navigation and international collaborations are delivered with regularity. Reliability, once exceptional, is now assumed.

This changes the institutional challenge. Executing one flawless mission is no longer enough; the next phase demands the ability to deliver complex missions repeatedly, without cascading delays across the programme. On the threshold of “Gaganyaan”, Chandrayaan-4 and the “Next Generation Launch Vehicle”, ISRO is entering a phase where scale, cadence and resilience matter as much as ingenuity.

The hidden bottleneck: capacity and launch cadence

ISRO’s first major constraint is execution capacity. Preparing simultaneously for human spaceflight, advanced science missions, satellite replenishment and a new heavy-lift rocket has exposed limits in integration facilities, test infrastructure and industrial throughput.

Launch numbers illustrate the issue. In 2025, ISRO managed only five launches — well below even its modest internal projections. When missions slip or encounter anomalies, delays ripple across unrelated programmes because the organisation still functions as designer, integrator and gatekeeper for nearly everything.

Addressing this will require more than technical fixes: expanded integration capacity, greater access to test stands, stronger industrial supply chains, and internal prioritisation frameworks that decide — transparently — which timelines can slip and which cannot.

Liberalisation without a law: ISRO caught in the middle

Since the 2020 reforms, India’s space sector has formally moved towards liberalisation. Institutions such as “IN-SPACe” and “New Space India Limited” were created to separate research, regulation and commercialisation.

Yet in practice, ISRO continues to be pulled back into roles it was meant to shed. The core reason is the absence of a comprehensive national space law. Without statutory clarity on authorisation, liability, insurance and dispute resolution, ISRO remains the default technical certifier and problem-solver when commercial or regulatory uncertainties arise.

A space law would not only enable startups; it would protect ISRO itself by insulating it from ad hoc demands and ensuring that governance responsibilities survive political and administrative transitions.

Competitiveness is now an ecosystem question

Globally, launch economics are shifting towards higher cadence, partial reusability and rapid manufacturing cycles. ISRO’s “Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle” may be powerful, but it remains a medium-lift vehicle in an era where agility and cost efficiency are decisive.

The NGLV’s emphasis on reusability and heavy payloads reflects an understanding that competitiveness is no longer optional. But building and operating such systems requires deep manufacturing capacity, advanced qualification infrastructure and significant capital — areas where India’s space ecosystem is still maturing. The sharp fall in space-sector investment in 2024 highlights the difficulty of financing long-horizon hardware programmes.

From landmark missions to routine excellence

ISRO’s past achievements have earned it public trust and political capital. The next phase, however, depends less on individual triumphs and more on institutional endurance. Sustained performance will hinge on whether governance reforms truly reduce ISRO’s burden, whether industry can scale alongside ambition, and whether regulation, manufacturing and finance evolve together.

The question before India’s space programme is no longer whether it can achieve remarkable missions — it clearly can — but whether it can make ambition routine without stretching its institutions to breaking point.