Bengaluru: ISRO’s commercial arm New Space India Limited (NSIL) has bagged four more dedicated launch service contracts even as it plans to pursue satellite building deals. NSIL launched its first dedicated commercial mission on February 28, orbiting Brazilian satellite Amazonia-1 from Sriharikota spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
“We currently have four more dedicated launch service contracts, which will be executed in the coming two to three years,” NSIL’s Chairman and Managing Director G Narayanan told news agency Press Trust of India in an interview.
Apart from launch services, NSIL is also actively pursuing the new policy change to provide space based services on ”demand driven basis”, a shift from the current supply driven model, he said. “Towards this we are indiscussions with several users to ascertain their demands and shortly you will hear from us regarding firm agreements for building and launching of satellites through NSIL and providing services primarily in the communication sector for the end  customer”, he said.
Asked if NSIL has any plans to build satellites for other countries, in addition to providing launch services at present, Mr Narayanan said on the basis of its new mandate obtained as part of the space reforms, the company will shortly enter into realising of satellites too. According to him, while the initial focus will be on driving  the change nationally from supply driven to demand driven model in the domestic market, NSIL is not averse to taking up these activities for other countries.
“In the long run we will definitely embark on trying to capture market of other countries also in this field (satellite-building),” Mr Narayanan said.
He also said that NSIL is in the process of identifying an Indian industry partner (which could be consortium of companies or a company) to under  take end-to-end production of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which is ISRO’s workhorse rocket.
“We expect to complete this complex process in about six to eight months. Once the Indian industry partner is identified, I am confident that they will be in a position to deliver an entirely built PSLV in about two to three years with appropriate hand holding from ISRO”, he said.
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