ISRO Faces Talent Exodus: More Than 100 Scientists Working on Gaganyaan and Other Missions Resign

Updated: NewsPoint | 16 Jul 2026, 2:55 pm

In a major administrative intervention aimed at protecting India’s most ambitious space exploration timelines, the Department of Space (DoS) has introduced stringent rules governing the resignation and voluntary retirement of scientists. The sudden policy shift, outlined in an internal memorandum dated 14 July 2026, directly targets Group ‘A’ scientific and technical personnel. It mandates that exit requests from individuals involved in flagship programmes, including the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission, will no longer be accepted as a matter of routine.

Reversing Autonomy to Protect Flagship Missions

The new directive effectively overturns a critical administrative reform introduced in November 2020. Under the previous guidelines, directors of various Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) centres and unit heads held the authority to approve voluntary retirements and resignations for personnel up to the rank of Scientist/Engineer-SG.

With the implementation of the new directive, this local authority has been suspended for personnel working on strategically vital projects. Centre directors have now been instructed to defer approvals until the respective missions are completed. Any pending or new exit application must be forwarded directly to the DoS in New Delhi, accompanied by the concerned centre director’s formal recommendation, for final approval.

While the DoS has not released official numbers regarding the departures, highly placed institutional sources indicate that an estimated 100 to 120 scientists have tendered their resignations in recent months. The attrition has hit key technical hubs particularly hard, with reports suggesting approximately 80 personnel have left the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru, alongside at least 20 departures from the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram.

Alarmingly for the space agency, the departures are not limited to entry-level recruits. The exodus includes highly experienced, mission-critical leaders who possess years of accumulated, specialised institutional knowledge. Among those who have reportedly moved on are:

Victor Joseph: Project Director for the LVM3 launch vehicle at VSSC.
The Project Director for SpaDeX: The crucial space docking experiment mission at URSC.
Aditya Rallapalli: The simulation project manager for Chandrayaan-3, who famously led the team responsible for validating the historic lunar landing sequence across more than 100,000 tests.

Project Continuity and a Booming Private Sector

ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan has sought to reassure the public and space enthusiasts, downplaying concerns regarding mission delays. He acknowledged the departures but maintained that employee turnover is a standard characteristic of any large organisation. Narayanan emphasized that the new memorandum serves a dual purpose: it aims to retain seasoned talent while ensuring that critical national objectives do not face abrupt operational disruptions. He assured that responsibilities are being systematically reassigned to prevent any single point of failure.

Historically, attrition has been an ongoing challenge for the Indian space agency. Official records indicate that nearly half of all fresh recruits left the organisation between 2004 and 2007, while roughly 700 employees resigned between 2012 and 2024. Furthermore, parliamentary data from earlier this year revealed that ISRO’s scientific and technical cadre was already operating below its sanctioned strength, with over 1,600 positions lying vacant.

However, the current landscape introduces a new challenge: India’s rapidly expanding private space sector. With the government increasingly transferring launch vehicle technologies and satellite constellation projects to private aerospace firms, the demand for highly specialised, experienced space professionals has soared.

While ISRO’s 2025-26 annual report highlights that the recruitment of 1,050 new scientific and administrative posts is in an advanced stage, the latest government intervention underscores a stark reality: in the complex field of space exploration, filling a vacant position is far easier than replacing decades of mission-critical expertise.