Have complete trust in ISRO: French space agency, Pg14

Key Highlights:

• The French space agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), has reaffirmed its full confidence in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) despite recent failures of ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
• This trust is crucial for the upcoming joint TRISHNA (Thermal Infra-Red Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural Resource Assessment) mission, scheduled for launch in 2027.
• The PSLV experienced two consecutive failures: the PSLV-C62 mission on January 12, 2026, and the PSLV-C61 mission on May 18, 2025.
• Both failures were attributed to anomalies detected in the third stage of the launch vehicle.

Detailed Insights:

• CNES emphasized that risks are inherent in space launches and that mutual trust is vital for complex international collaborations like TRISHNA.
• The PSLV-C62 mission, which failed in January 2026, was carrying the EOS-N1 earth observation satellite.
• The PSLV-C61 mission, which failed in May 2025, was intended to deploy the EOS-09 (RISAT 1-B) satellite.
• The PSLV is historically known as ISRO's "workhorse" rocket, having completed over 60 missions with a high success rate prior to these recent setbacks.
• The TRISHNA mission aims to provide high spatial and temporal resolution data for monitoring Earth's surface temperature, emissivity, and various biophysical and radiation variables.
• This Indo-French mission is designed to address critical issues such as water and food security, urban heat islands, and the assessment of natural resources.
• CNES is responsible for providing the Thermal Infra-Red (TIR) payload for the TRISHNA satellite, while ISRO develops the Visible - Near Infra-Red - Short Wave Infra-Red (VNIR-SWIR) payload.

Scientific/Technical Concepts Involved:

• Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV): ISRO's expendable medium-lift launch vehicle, primarily used for placing satellites into Sun-synchronous polar orbits.
• Thermal Infra-Red Imaging: A remote sensing technique that measures the heat emitted from Earth's surface to determine temperature and other related parameters.
• Spatial Resolution: The smallest feature size that a satellite sensor can distinguish on the ground.
• Temporal Resolution: The frequency at which a satellite sensor can revisit and acquire data for the same location.