NSIL to invest Rs 10,000 crore to own, operate satellites

Fresh from the launch of the Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is gearing up to invest Rs 10,000 crore over the next five years to own and operate satellites and launch vehicles.

NSIL's first priority will be to complete four more dedicated launch service contracts over the next two years. “Two of these will be communication satellites with one dedicated for Direct To Home (DTH) applications. The second satellite will be for broadband services,” NSIL's Chairman and Managing Director G Narayanan told the media here on Friday.

Three of these launches will take the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) route, while one will be through the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). “We expect to raise Rs 2,000 crore every year through a mix and equity over the next five years,” explained NSIL's Director, Technical & Strategy, D Radhakrishnan.

Developed by ISRO, the SSLV is a three-stage all-solid vehicle capable of launching satellites of up to 500kg mass into low earth orbits. The first launch of this launch vehicle is expected sometime in April this year. “This will cater to a lot of small, nanosatellites in the 7-8kg category coming up for launch in the next 10 years.”

Initially mandated to take over the production and operation of existing launch vehicles from ISRO, NSIL's role was expanded to own and operate capital-intensive space assets such as satellites and launch vehicles.

In the two years since its launch, Narayanan informed, NSIL has executed launch services spread over four PSLV missions for 45 auxiliary customer satellites and the recent primary satellite for INPE-Brazil.

NSIL' order book during the first year was over Rs 300 crore, which grew to Rs 400 crore in the second year. “We are still at a nascent stage and want to increase this to eventually record 7-8 launches every year. We have also proposed to take over the satellites already launched by Isro,” he said.

To manufacture the entire PSLV through Indian industries, PSIL has already issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) to identify an industrial partner. Five companies are reported to have responded. “We are looking at both consortia and independent, individual companies.”

Currently engaged for ISRO's Gaganyaan project, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark-III will also eventually be part of the NSIL fleet. “In the next two to three years, the market will be there for all the four launch vehicles,” said Radhakrishnan.