New Delhi Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-) President Pawan Goenka said that private companies in India will finally be allowed to start their own commercial space projects by the end of this year, with the government soon to announce a new space policy. Will do SPACe), the nodal government space agency. Speaking in an interview, Goenka said that the first batch of five Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) built by a consortium of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Larsen & Toubro Limited will be used entirely by ISRO. This will be the first instance when a complete rocket will be built outside the space agency.
“Once the first phase of privately built PSLV deployment is completed, future PSLVs will also be supplied to the private sector – which will use these high-capacity launch vehicles for large commercial missions,” Goenka said on Tuesday. can do.”
Goenka said the government’s long-awaited space policy is “almost” ready and could be introduced in the coming weeks, adding that the policy will “reduce all regulatory hurdles” for private space firms in the country.
Currently, Indian companies are not allowed to use ISRO’s facilities for space projects, such as those undertaken by the US’s SpaceX and Orbital Sciences. Therefore, Indian companies such as Agnikul Cosmos and Skyroute Aerospace, which are building their own rockets, cannot use ISRO’s facilities to launch them at this time, a rule that is expected to change in space policy. Is. Allowing private companies to conduct space missions has worked in favor of countries like the US, which has spurred private sector investment. For example, the reusable Falcon 9 rocket built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX has become a favorite for space projects globally. Indian startups, on the other hand, may focus on creating cheaper launch vehicles and innovative designs.
The new space policy is also expected to allow Indian private firms to work with government entities for commercial space missions. Industry experts said most of the research and development work would be assigned to ISRO.
Chaitanya Giri, consultant at think-tank Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries, said the privately built PSLV rocket will help upgrade the launch vehicle’s design, mass-produce and enable Indian startups to launch in greater numbers. will help
“The current PSLV we have is built by ISRO, which is not a commercial entity. Even though PSLV is known as the workhorse of ISRO, the latter has worked so far as the number of satellites carried by India is quite limited. If we aim to capture a large part of the global pie for commercial space launches, we need a larger number of launch vehicles with better configurations,” Giri said.
ISRO’s PSLV has so far been used to launch government and commercial satellites into low and medium Earth orbits. On 30 June, the PSLV-C53 rocket made headlines as it carried the first privately built Indian satellites into orbit.
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