ISRO Scientist/Engineer ‘SC’ Recruitment 2026

ISRO Scientist/Engineer SC Recruitment 2026 at a glance

The Indian Space Research Organisation, under the Department of Space, recruits entry-level engineers into the Scientist/Engineer ‘SC’ grade through the ISRO Centralised Recruitment Board (ICRB). This 2026 cycle covers seven BE/B.Tech disciplines plus one post in the Physical Research Laboratory, an autonomous body of the Department of Space.

Important dates

All three dates below are taken directly from the official advertisement. ISRO sends every subsequent communication by email and through its website, so there is no postal intimation to wait for.

Vacancy details by post code

Vacancy numbers are provisional. ICRB reserves the right to increase or decrease them, and to not fill a post at all without assigning a reason.

Where you could be posted

Postings are tentative. Appointees are liable to be posted at any centre or unit of the Department of Space and can be transferred at any time based on need.

Educational eligibility

Every post code requires a BE/B.Tech or equivalent degree with a minimum aggregate of 65% marks, computed as the average of all semesters, or a CGPA of 6.84 on a 10-point scale. Graduation must have been completed within the stipulated course duration prescribed by the university.

How ISRO reads your marksheet

This is where a large number of otherwise strong candidates get filtered out. The rules in the notification are specific:

• Both CGPA and percentage printed? At least one of the two must independently meet the ISRO norm — 65% or 6.84 CGPA.
• Only CGPA printed? That CGPA itself must meet 6.84. Converting CGPA into a percentage is not permitted, even if your university publishes an official conversion formula.
• Only percentage printed? The same logic applies in reverse — the printed percentage must meet 65%.

Dual and integrated degree holders

• If graduation and post-graduation CGPA or percentage are shown separately, the graduation-level figure is reckoned.
• If a single common figure covers the entire course, that final combined figure is reckoned.
• If the university prescribes no CGPA or percentage on the dual/integrated degree certificate, the cumulative figure from the final or consolidated marksheet is reckoned.
• These rules apply uniformly, regardless of whether the institution supplies a derivation formula.

GATE requirement and paper mapping

Screening for interview is done on the basis of a valid GATE 2025 or GATE 2026 score. Both the GATE paper and the subject of your qualifying degree must match the discipline prescribed for the post code.

For reference, on a GATE scorecard the marks are out of 100 for your raw performance, the rank is your position among candidates in that paper, and the score is the normalised figure out of 1000. It is the last of these that ISRO uses.

Age limit and relaxation

The upper age limit is 28 years as on 17 August 2026. The notification converts this into explicit date-of-birth cut-offs, which is the cleanest way to check your own eligibility.

Category-based age relaxation applies only where posts are reserved for that category in the post code you are applying to.

Category certificate requirements

Application fee

Accepted payment modes: Internet Banking, UPI, domestic Debit Cards and domestic Credit Cards — through the Bharatkosh portal only. Cash remittance, cheque, demand draft, money order and IPO are not accepted.

• You can pay immediately after submitting the form using the Make Payment button on the registration confirmation page.
• Or pay later, on or before 19 August 2026, using the Make Payment link on the advertisement page with your registration number and date of birth.
• ISRO’s fee is the same across modes, but bank charges and taxes may differ.
• Never click Refresh or Back during payment — the session aborts.
• Check the Payment Status link 24 hours after paying and print the receipt. For pending or failed transactions, contact your bank.

Fee-exempt candidates still need to confirm receipt of the system-generated email acknowledging successful submission of the application.

How to apply, step by step

1. Open the notification page. Go to www.isro.gov.in between 28 July and 17 August 2026 and locate advertisement ISRO:ICRB:02(EMC-CEPO):2026.
2. Check eligibility against your own documents. Degree branch, printed CGPA or percentage, date of birth, GATE paper and GATE validity year. The notification places the entire responsibility for eligibility on the candidate.
3. Register online. Enter your email address carefully — hall tickets and interview call letters go by email only. Preserve the registration number generated.
4. Fill the application. Select the correct post code, and enter your GATE Score exactly as printed in the Score field of your scorecard.
5. Upload documents. Photograph and signature as JPG, GATE scorecard as PDF, within the size limits given below.
6. Review every field before submitting. ISRO explicitly advises checking all fields, and asks candidates not to file multiple applications for the same post.
7. Pay the fee on Bharatkosh (if not exempt) by 19 August 2026 and download the receipt.
8. Confirm the acknowledgement email arrived. Keep checking spam and junk folders through the recruitment cycle.

Candidates registered on the National Career Service (NCS) portal who meet the eligibility conditions may also apply through the same procedure.

Document upload specifications

Applications with unclear or non-compliant uploads are rejected. Only three files are uploaded at the application stage.

Photograph rules that cause rejections

• Light-coloured background, preferably white.
• Caps, hats and dark glasses are not acceptable.
• If you wear spectacles, ensure no reflections and that your eyes are clearly visible.
• Rejected samples illustrated in the official annexure include: extra colour, too close, blurred, inverted, too dark, too small, facing sideways, with goggles.
• If your scan exceeds 50 KB, reduce DPI resolution or colour depth at scanning time rather than compressing until the image degrades.

Originals supporting qualification, age, category and NOC must be produced at the interview or whenever ICRB calls for them.

Selection process

The prescribed qualification is described in the notification as the minimum requirement and does not automatically make a candidate eligible for interview. There are three stages.

Stage 1 — Screening on GATE Score

Candidates are shortlisted for interview in a 1:7 ratio, based on GATE Score awarded — not GATE marks, not GATE rank. With 13 Computer Science posts, for example, roughly 91 candidates would be called for interview in that discipline.

Stage 2 — Interview, 100 marks

How the 10 academic-achievement marks are split

Stage 3 — Qualifying criteria and final panel

For the final panel, 50% weightage goes to GATE Score and 50% to interview marks. ISRO reserves the right to change the qualifying criteria for interview and final selection for administrative reasons.

How the ISRO Scientist SC cutoff actually works

There is no fixed, pre-announced cutoff in this recruitment. Two separate thresholds decide your fate, and confusing them is the most common misreading of the notification.

Practical implication: a very high GATE Score gets you into the room, but it only carries half the final weight. A candidate entering with a mid-range score can still overtake someone ranked above them by performing distinctly better across the 100 interview marks.

Salary, allowances and career growth

Selected candidates are appointed as Scientist/Engineer ‘SC’ in Level 10 of the Pay Matrix with a minimum basic pay of ₹56,100 per month.

Adding DA, HRA and transport allowance to the basic pay, the gross monthly emolument for a fresh Scientist/Engineer ‘SC’ typically lands in the range of roughly ₹95,000 to ₹1,15,000 depending on the city classification applicable to the posting. Treat this as an indicative estimate; the notification itself specifies only the basic pay.

Career progression

ISRO runs a Merit Promotion Scheme under which promotion to higher levels for scientific and technical posts is delinked from vacancy availability. Meritorious candidates move up the hierarchy through a periodic merit-based performance review, which is a structural difference from most other central government engineering services.

Travel allowance for interview

Candidates attending the interview are reimbursed to-and-fro second class or sleeper class train fare by the shortest route from the city indicated in the online application form. Change of address or city for this purpose is not entertained — so enter your city carefully at application time.

Mistakes that get applications rejected

1. Typing GATE marks or rank instead of GATE Score. The single most consequential error, and ICRB verifies it.
2. Converting CGPA to a percentage to claim 65%. Explicitly not permitted, regardless of your university’s formula.
3. Applying with a mismatched GATE paper. Both the GATE paper and the qualifying degree subject must match the post code.
4. OBC certificate not in the Central Government NCL proforma, or dated after 17 August 2026.
5. EWS certificate issued for the wrong financial year. It must be valid for FY 2026–2027.
6. Photograph with a cap, goggles, dark background or spectacle glare. The official annexure illustrates every rejected variant.
7. Submitting the form but never completing the Bharatkosh payment before 19 August 2026.
8. Applying while employed in government service without prior permission, then failing to produce an original NOC at the interview.
9. Filing multiple applications for the same post, which ISRO asks candidates to avoid.
10. Ignoring email. Every communication, including the hall ticket, comes only by email or via the ISRO website. ISRO accepts no responsibility for non-receipt.

How to prepare for the ISRO Scientist SC interview

Because 50% of the final panel comes from a 100-mark interview, the preparation problem is different from a written-exam recruitment. Here is how the marks map to what you should actually work on.

Technical academic knowledge — 40 marks

The board probes depth in your core subjects rather than breadth across the syllabus. Pick four or five core subjects from your branch and be prepared to derive results, not just state them. For Computer Science candidates that usually means operating systems, DBMS, computer networks and data structures; for Mechanical, thermodynamics, strength of materials, heat transfer and manufacturing; for Electronics, signals and systems, analog and digital circuits, communication and control systems.

General awareness in your specialisation — 20 marks

This is the ISRO-specific slice. Know the centre you have applied to, its mandate, recent missions, launch vehicle families, satellite series relevant to your branch, and where your discipline fits into a space programme. A civil candidate should be able to talk about launch pad and ground facility engineering; a computer science candidate about onboard software, telemetry, ground station data handling and remote sensing data pipelines.

Presentation and communication — 20 marks

Twenty marks for how you speak is a large share. Practise explaining your final year project and internship work in three minutes, out loud, without jargon padding. Record yourself once and you will find your own filler patterns quickly.

Comprehension — 10 marks

Answer the question that was asked. Where a question is ambiguous, ask a clarifying question rather than guessing at scope — boards read that as comprehension, not weakness.

Academic achievements — 10 marks

These marks are largely already fixed by your institute, CGPA and institute rank. Nothing to prepare here, but it is useful to know the arithmetic: a candidate from a non-listed institute with a CGPA of 7.6 and no institute rank starts 8 marks behind the maximum before the interview begins, which has to be recovered in the other four attributes.