More satellite launch orders coming, but Isro has challenges ahead

[thesolar65]

Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), has orders from seven countries to launch 28 satellites, but may struggle to take more business as the space agency faces capacity constraints, including the lack of heavier rockets.

Isro, which has emerged as a globally competitive launch provider, uses its workhorse rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Pslv) to hurl research and earth observation satellites in the lower earth orbit. Pslv has launched 45 satellites for foreign customers, including Friday’s launch of the five British satellites for a unit of EADS Astrium, Europe’s largest satellite maker.

"If we are looking for more launches for commercial purpose, one of the issues we need to tackle is the capacity to build more and do launches in a given time,” A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman of Isro said. “We are working on increasing the frequency of launches from Sriharikota and also trying to increase the realisation of a larger amount of large vehicles in a given time".


Isro sends an average of three rockets a year from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDCC), India’s spaceport at Sriharikota, near Chennai. In 2015, it has scheduled four rocket missions including two that it has already launched.

The space agency is also constrained by the slow progress in building the homegrown Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), the rocket that can hurl communication satellites in 36,000 kms into space.

Isro’s first success was in January 2014 when GSLV Mk-II with an indigenous cryogenic upper stage placed an experimental communication satellite into space. This came after nearly two decades of development, couple of failures and delays due to US sanctions on Russia for sharing cryogenic engine to India. Isro needs two more launches of GSLV-MkII that can carry two tonne communication satellites even before it can send its own commercial communication satellites using the rocket to space.


Isro uses the services of Arianespace, the European rocket firm that has capabilities to launch heavier satellites to hurl its communication satellites.

In December, Isro tested a technology demonstrator of GSLV Mk-III, a bigger rocket that can carry 4-tonne satellites to space. India’s Humanspace flight programme or sending a man to space also depends on the progress of GSLV-MkIII rocket.

"So far we have been doing four to five launches a year and we need to go up to 10 launches a year," Kumar said. The existing launches include sending commercial satellites on Arianespace rocket.

Antrix says they have 28 more satellites from six to seven countries to be executed in next three years. “And more and more customers are coming to us for launch," said V S Hegde, chairman cum managing director, Antrix Corporation Ltd. This year, there would be one more commercial launch, of satellites from Singapore, he added.

@Rain Man @Guynextdoor2 @danish_vij @anant_s @SR-91 @levina @Ryuzaki @Dash @SRP @jbgt90 @jaatram @Chanakya's_Chant and others

This is the problem with every Indian Companies. Prepare a good product without a sincere production line!!

 

[Ankit Kumar 001]

Don't worry HEC is there for help.
They will not face any problems in at least setting up another launch pad.

 

[Levina]

The problem is, ISRO is the main space manufacturer of India. The 12th five year plan states the need to increase for capabilities of private sector to take over some part of the production and assembly tasks.

 

[Tuchha]

ISRO is no where in space market unless they master heavy rocket technology with heavier payloads. They key is, fine tune the GSLV system & make it a workhorse like PSLV.

 

[Echo_419]

Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), has orders from seven countries to launch 28 satellites, but may struggle to take more business as the space agency faces capacity constraints, including the lack of heavier rockets.

Isro, which has emerged as a globally competitive launch provider, uses its workhorse rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (Pslv) to hurl research and earth observation satellites in the lower earth orbit. Pslv has launched 45 satellites for foreign customers, including Friday’s launch of the five British satellites for a unit of EADS Astrium, Europe’s largest satellite maker.

"If we are looking for more launches for commercial purpose, one of the issues we need to tackle is the capacity to build more and do launches in a given time,” A S Kiran Kumar, Chairman of Isro said. “We are working on increasing the frequency of launches from Sriharikota and also trying to increase the realisation of a larger amount of large vehicles in a given time".


Isro sends an average of three rockets a year from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDCC), India’s spaceport at Sriharikota, near Chennai. In 2015, it has scheduled four rocket missions including two that it has already launched.

The space agency is also constrained by the slow progress in building the homegrown Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), the rocket that can hurl communication satellites in 36,000 kms into space.

Isro’s first success was in January 2014 when GSLV Mk-II with an indigenous cryogenic upper stage placed an experimental communication satellite into space. This came after nearly two decades of development, couple of failures and delays due to US sanctions on Russia for sharing cryogenic engine to India. Isro needs two more launches of GSLV-MkII that can carry two tonne communication satellites even before it can send its own commercial communication satellites using the rocket to space.


Isro uses the services of Arianespace, the European rocket firm that has capabilities to launch heavier satellites to hurl its communication satellites.

In December, Isro tested a technology demonstrator of GSLV Mk-III, a bigger rocket that can carry 4-tonne satellites to space. India’s Humanspace flight programme or sending a man to space also depends on the progress of GSLV-MkIII rocket.

"So far we have been doing four to five launches a year and we need to go up to 10 launches a year," Kumar said. The existing launches include sending commercial satellites on Arianespace rocket.

Antrix says they have 28 more satellites from six to seven countries to be executed in next three years. “And more and more customers are coming to us for launch," said V S Hegde, chairman cum managing director, Antrix Corporation Ltd. This year, there would be one more commercial launch, of satellites from Singapore, he added.

@Rain Man @Guynextdoor2 @danish_vij @anant_s @SR-91 @levina @Ryuzaki @Dash @SRP @jbgt90 @jaatram @Chanakya's_Chant and others

This is the problem with every Indian Companies. Prepare a good product without a sincere production line!!

Pvt sector needs to step in so take some load off ISRO

ISRO is no where in space market unless they master heavy rocket technology with heavier payloads. They key is, fine tune the GSLV system & make it a workhorse like PSLV.

That's work in progress

 

[anant_s]

Yes agree with @Tuchha
Once Indian GSLV achieves the reliability of PSLV launches, coupled with the fact that cost of launch is most competitive, India can mop up sizable market in near future.

 

[Chanakya's_Chant]

This is the problem with every Indian Companies. Prepare a good product without a sincere production line!!

Problem isn't their production line as well - they can very well manage to generate millions in revenue through their existing infrastructure only - but thanks to ISRO's poor planning and shoddy execution - that isn't the case -

India might have reached Mars but still 75 per cent of Indian television’s transponder requirements are hired from foreign satellites - India has failed to emerge as a player in the global satellite market.

From 300-odd channels in 2008, the Indian television industry more than doubled to 821 licensed channels in 2012. This is expected to grow to 1600 channels by 2017, of which 1300 are expected to be operational. The channels operate on C band, extended-C and Ku-bands. DTH services operate on Ku-band, a rapidly growing segment.

In order to enable this growth, the government had to scrap the “closed sky” policy that prevented the hiring of foreign transponders. The TV industry was allowed to hire foreign transponders with a caveat that all hiring be done for short periods through ISRO (Antrix). The objective was to shift to Indian satellites at the earliest - but this has not materialised.

It had planned for a target of 500 transponders on domestic satellites in the 11th Plan period (2007-12) and further increasing it to 800 transponders in the 12th Plan period (2012-17). In practice, it has been able to operationalise only 187 transponders during the 11th Plan period. In the fast growing and strategically important Ku-band segment, ISRO has been able to provide only 48 Ku-band transponders as against the target of 218 transponders, forcing DTH operators to shift to foreign satellites. All this has translated into higher costs as well as a huge revenue loss. In C-band, only 160 channels out of 660 operational channels are carried by transponders on Indian satellites, which is barely 25 per cent. Similarly, out of 76 Ku-band transmitters used by DTH (as of July 2013), only 19 (25 per cent) are on Indian satellites. This shortfall is largely due to ISRO launching only three satellites as against the planned target of nine satellite in the 11th Plan period.

And then we have undue favors granted like in TATA Sky's case - they even allowed a foreign satellite in Indian orbital slot. Inability of the DoS to realise its communication satellites and failure to utilize available satellite capacity led to competitive disadvantage to the DoS as against the foreign satellite system.

CAG nails ISRO for favouring Tata Sky
CAG raps ISRO for allowing foreign satellite in Indian orbit

Antrix does not have employees or facilities to execute projects but instead relies on the capacity of ISRO. This capacity gap has therefore boiled down to Antrix signing up launch clients for mainly spare capacity on the PSLV and with no real movement in scaling business elsewhere. That includes development of turnkey satellites for an international clientele due to the large backlog in telecommunications satellites for the country’s own requirement..

While there are 500 small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) working in the space sector value chain, they remain vendors essentially as pieces within the larger puzzle and have not been actively enabled to move up the value chain to be turnkey solution providers. This not only affects the business volumes these SMEs gain with most companies clientele limited to ISRO - DoS has not developed a strategy to help them gain access to global commercial product and services in the sector.

 

[Ajaysingh]

Some extra funding for ISRO and offload some part to Pvt org will solve this


All the best ISRO we are proud of you