ISRO’s collaboration with Elon Musk to foster new opportunities in international spacetech
With ISRO having emerged as the world’s lowest-cost yet most successful space agency, an increasing number of countries and companies will be looking at partnering with India in space exploration
New Delhi, Jan 5: Days before microblogging site X owner and billionaire Elon Musk is all set to announce the first Tesla factory in India, the Department of Space surprised everyone with a statement that the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO)-built GSAT-20 satellite will be launched by a SpaceX rocket.
Musk is also the founder and majority stakeholder in the California-based space payload service provider.
The GSAT-20 is a Kurtz-above-band (Ka-band) High Throughput Satellite (HTS) with 32 beams offering pan-India coverage, including Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.
Ka-band satellites are capable of delivering high-speed broadband internet connectivity as well as audio and video data. Similarly, HTS satellites are capable of delivering anywhere from 10-100 times higher throughput (up to 100 Gbit/s) compared to conventional satellites through the deployment of powerful spot beams.
The government-owned New Space India Ltd. (NSIL), responsible for producing, assembling and integrating launch vehicles and satellites in association with the Indian industry, has procured the GSAT-20 satellite from ISRO, which will be launched aboard a Falcon-9 rocket under a launch service contract in the second quarter of 2024.
"GSAT-20, weighing 4,700 kg, offers [an] HTS capacity of nearly 48Gpbs. The satellite has been specifically designed to meet the demanding service needs of remote and unconnected regions,” said an NSIL statement. And more such international partnerships may be on their way.
More such collaborations are on the way with ISRO having emerged as the world’s lowest-cost yet most successful space agency, an increasing number of countries and companies will be looking at partnering with India in space exploration as part of Space Race 2.0, say experts.
“SpaceX will be providing the bigger capacity required by ISRO to put its heavier satellites in space. It is also a major step towards scaling up the Indian space sector to tap into emerging market opportunities in spactech and must be celebrated,” averred Brajesh Singh, President India at the management consulting firm Arthur D Little.
Other experts The Assam Tribune reached out to say that the deployment of GSAT-20 satellites will help in bridging the last-mile connectivity gap in regions such as the Northeast by making satellite internet available at affordable rates to users.
“We were eagerly looking forward to this announcement from NSIL. In the months ahead, we may be hearing similar announcements for Indian partnerships from Japanese companies working in either the space or semi-space sector,” said Singh. So far, three Indian spacetech startups, Exseed (2018), Pixxel (2022) and Digantara (2023), have used SpacceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 to send their payloads into space.
