India's space agency faces worst staffing crisis in 25 years as vacancies soar
BENGALURU: The Department of Space (DoS), which tightened exit rules to stem a wave of voluntary retirements and resignations among scientists working on flagship missions, is grappling with a deepening manpower crunch that has left nearly three out of every ten sanctioned posts vacant.
Employment data analysed by this publication shows that at the end of 2025-26, DoS had only 14,637 employees against a sanctioned strength of 20,269 posts — a staffing level of just 72.2 per cent. The 5,632 vacancies represent the widest staffing gap in at least 25 years.
In fact, the current employee strength of 14,637 is lower than the 14,847 recorded in 2001-02, though the sanctioned strength then was only 16,423, resulting in a vacancy rate of under 10 per cent.
The vacancy rate has steadily worsened over the past few years, falling from nearly 86 per cent staffing in 2019-20 to just over 72 per cent today. This decline has occurred during one of the most ambitious phases of India's space programme, which includes missions to send humans to the Moon, build a space station, and launch a second Mars mission and a first Venus mission.
Scientific and technical personnel account for roughly three-fourths of DoS's workforce. The vacancies therefore disproportionately affect engineers, scientists and technical specialists who design satellites, launch vehicles and deep-space missions.
A recent parliamentary committee inquired about the reasons for the significant shortage of human resources. In its response, DoS stated that the accumulation of vacancies is largely the result of cascading effects since 2020-21 arising from Covid-19 restrictions, the implementation of sectoral reforms, and the adoption of more stringent and foolproof recruitment procedures.
According to DoS, recruitment processes could only be re-initiated after October 2023, creating a substantial gap of nearly 2-3 years. Recruitment has already been initiated for 1,449 posts, expected to be completed by October 2026, while another 933 posts are slated to be filled by December 2026. The remaining vacancies include erstwhile Group D posts and positions that will be filled after implementation of the second cadre review.
The numbers suggest DoS faces two parallel challenges: rebuilding a workforce that has steadily declined over the past few years while retaining experienced scientists working on missions that cannot easily afford to lose institutional knowledge.
