February 25, 2026
NVS-02, the second spacecraft in the NVS series, was injected successfully into the elliptical transfer orbit of 170 x 37785 km with 20.8o inclination on January 29, 2025 at 00:53 UT. The Spacecraft was separated from the Launch vehicle (GSLVF15) at 01:12:08 UT.On separation of the satellite from the launch vehicle, a series of autonomous activities on the satellite were carried out including the solar panel deployment and stabilizing the orientation for power generation. However, the orbit raising operations from the elliptical to circular orbit could not be carried out.
An Apex Committee was constituted to review the observations and recommend further course of actions. Based on available Telemetry data, detailed simulation studies were further carried out. The Apex Committee after thorough analysis of the simulation data concluded that the prime reason for the observation was found to be the drive signal not reaching the pyro valve of the oxidizer line of the engine meant for orbit raising.The committee concluded that the most likely cause for the observation is the disengagement of atleast one contacts (in each of the main and redundant paths) of the connector.
The committee has provided a set of recommendations aimed at enhancing the redundancy and reliability of pyro system operations for future missions. In line with these recommendations, all the corrective actions were successfully implemented in CMS-03 spacecraft launched on November 2, 2025 by LVM-3 M5, and the pyro systems performed satisfactorily placing the satellite in the intended orbit. Further, these set of recommendations will be followed for all future missions, as applicable.