India and the dream of an orbital launch trifecta | Part 5 of ISRO’s rocket crisis

This article is Part 5 of my ongoing series on India’s launch vehicle crisis. A space program can only move as swiftly and flexibly as its orbital rockets, and India has been amid a grinding halt. As such, I’ve been focusing my Indian Space Progress blog & newsletter on fully exploring this situation before resuming coverage of national space activities at large.Part 1 of the article series reviewed the state of India’s orbital launch vehicles, revealing a bleak picture of ambitious goals sliding to the right, in stark contrast to the incessant chest thumping about efficiency.Part 2 analyzed the intricacies of ISRO’s launchpad infrastructure, showing how every PSLV rocket failure cascades effects to all Indian rockets in direct or indirect ways.Part 3 assessed and concluded that India’s rockets will not be able to meet its civil space and strategic launch manifest by 2030 even at peak performance.Part 4 shows how Chandrayaan 4 is deeply tied to India’s launch vehicle and human…