Year 2026 is the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) most definig year in decades. ISRO is planning for an uncrewed Gaganyaan test flight, a national space station is under construction, and a next-generation rocket is in design pahse. However the space agency is dealing with the departure of well over 100 scientists and engineers from its most critical centres. The Innovators Jam brings you a breakdown of what’s happening at ISRO, and more importantly where do critical missions stand now. Read on:
What happened at ISRO? How many scientists actually resigned?
News sources claim that the number of recent departures linked to key ISRO missions lies between 100 and 120. This was followed by an internal Department of Space memorandum dated July 14, 2026 that aims to curb sudden exits from ISRO.
The memo states there has been a sharp rise in resignation and voluntary retirement requests from Group ‘A’ scientific and technical personnel, including those associated with Gaganyaan and other missions. This could “severely impact” the implementation of projects of national importance.
Roughly 80 scientists and engineers are reported to have resigned from the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), and at least 20 more from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) — two of ISRO’s most important centres for satellite and launch-vehicle work.
For context: URSC had 1,339 employees and VSSC had 4,577 at the end of the last financial year. Essentially, the departures are a small fraction of headcount but accounts for a much larger fraction of the specialised talent at the two centres doing the heaviest lifting on current missions.
Who are the ISRO scientists that left, and which missions were they working on?
The departures reported so far include some genuinely senior names. Victor Joseph, the LVM-3 Project Director at VSSC, and the SpaDeX Project Director at URSC are both reported to have resigned, along with a younger scientist who played a significant role in the Chandrayaan-3 mission.
LVM-3 is the launch vehicle central to Gaganyaan; SpaDeX is ISRO’s space docking demonstration technology. Both of these are foundational to India’s human spaceflight and future space-station ambitions, not peripheral programmes.
ISRO Chairman V Narayanan has confirmed that several scientists have left, but has said the organisation is equipped to handle the situation and that responsibilities are being reassigned as departures occur. Based on the roles vacated so far, three programmes have lost talent pool:
- Gaganyaan
- Bharatiya Antariksh Station
- Next Generation Launch Vehicle
Gaganyaan is currently testing human-rating and safety validation, and here a project director’s accumulated judgment is hard to replace. The Bharatiya Antariksh Station depends on the autonomous docking technology that SpaDeX exists to prove out, and its lead is among those who resigned.
Is Gaganyaan at any risk after the ISRO resignations?
No, not in the sense of being cancelled or indefinitely delayed. However, the loss of a Launch Vehicle Project Director on the very rocket (LVM-3, human-rated as HLVM3) that Gaganyaan depends on is not a minor operational hiccup.
Gaganyaan’s uncrewed test missions are scheduled through 2026, with a crewed Gaganyaan-4 flight targeted for early 2027. ISRO has already completed hot tests of the Gaganyaan Service Module Propulsion System and an Integrated Air Drop Test for the crew module, so the programme is active and advancing.
What does this mean for India’s Bharatiya Antariksh Station and NGLV programs?
These are the two programmes where a talent gap matters most, because they’re both still in early, design-heavy phases where senior technical leadership is hardest to replace.
The Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) — India’s own space station — was approved by the Union Cabinet with a funding allocation of ₹20,193 crore. The station is planned to weigh about 20 tonnes, orbit at roughly 400 km altitude, and support astronaut stays of 15-20 days, with a target completion window between 2028 and 2035. It depends on the same autonomous docking technology that SpaDeX was built to demonstrate — the programme whose project director is among those who’ve resigned.
The Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV, unofficially “Surya”) is meant to nearly triple India’s lift capacity. It’s still in the design and propulsion-validation phase, exactly the stage where losing senior engineers has the most long-term cost, since these are multi-year architectural decisions.
Has ISRO faced brain drain before, or is this unprecedented?
Attrition is not new to ISRO. Nearly half of its new recruits reportedly quit between 2004 and 2007, and roughly 700 employees resigned across the 2012-2024 period, according to earlier reports. ISRO’s 2025-26 annual report notes that recruitment of around 1,050 scientific, technical, and administrative posts is at an advanced stage, alongside a cadre review that has regularised 466 project posts and created about 460 new higher-grade positions.
What’s different this time is timing and visibility: these departures are landing in the same year as Gaganyaan’s most safety-critical test phase and the earliest, most leadership-dependent stage of the space station programme.
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