The ISRO arm aims to launch 10 commercial SSLVs by 2026

In an interview, NSIL chairman and managing director Radhakrishnan Durairaj said the state-run company has built three SSLV rockets so far, and the success of the first rocket earlier this year led it to approach commercial clients for satellite launch contracts.

“We are currently in contact with commercial clients that we have already worked with, to understand the type of market demand that we will achieve. By 2025, we expect to launch about five to seven missions through SSLV, which could increase to about eight to 10 missions in another year,” Durairaj said. the rocket

SSLV is the first lightweight indigenous rocket to successfully reach Low Earth Orbit (LEO) about 700 km above Earth’s surface. A light rocket has a capacity of about 500 kg of payload or satellites that it can carry into space. Larger rockets such as ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) typically have a payload capacity of 2,000 kg.

Although larger rockets can carry more satellites into orbit, they typically require a larger customer to book most of the rocket’s payload capacity and therefore can carry out fewer missions per year. SSLV, however, could tap the growing demand for small satellite launches from private companies to undertake more missions.

PSLV, therefore, does not have the scale that NSIL can achieve with SSLV. For example, PSLV had two launches in 2020, one in 2021 and three last year. Increasing the commercial launch capacity to 10 per year will give NSIL much more launch capacity.

Durairaj said demand has shifted to smaller satellite launches and smaller rockets that can handle such tasks. Smaller rockets such as SSLV target nano- and micro-satellites, which weigh less than 10kg and 100kg respectively, and offer on-demand launch services without the need to wait for a large company to book most of their manufacturers’ capacity.

“The SSLV is a small rocket designed with commercial goals in mind—the rocket will take less time to build, and is expected to serve as an on-demand satellite launcher, which, when combined with India’s upcoming private space sector, is the Indian Space Association’s (ISpA) industry director general Anil Kumar Bhat said, Give our country much more commercial satellite launch capacity than we have.

The current world market leader in commercial orbital space launches is the United States, and in particular, the private space firm, SpaceX, led by Elon Musk. The latter launched 61 commercial missions last year and is currently the world’s most frequently operating private orbital spaceflight launcher.

SSLVs, along with rockets from private Indian space companies like Agnikul Cosmos, are expected to help India gain a larger share of the global space market. A report by ISpA and consultancy firm EY India in October last year said commercial satellite launch services would see the domestic space industry contribute $13 billion to the economy by 2025 – a figure most industry stakeholders are optimistic of achieving.

Agnikul Cosmos is expected to conduct a demonstration mission of its Agniban rocket later this year. Fellow startup, Skyroot Aerospace, conducted its maiden launch with the Vikram-S rocket in November last year and is targeting an orbital launch with a follow-up rocket, Vikram-1, in the December quarter this year.

“We have already signed commercial contracts with several companies and probably by the end of this year we will have about five commercial payloads on the rocket in the mission. After the first launch later this year, we plan to conduct multiple commercial launches with Vikram-1 by 2024. We are already talking to companies to sign contracts for these launches,” said Skyroute CEO Pawan Kumar Chandana.

Combining the public and private sectors, India expects to launch double-digit annual rocket launches in the next 18 months, according to industry experts. SSLV, Vikram and similar rockets are expected to account for most of these launches.