With the successful
launch of PSLV-C30 carrying six foreign customer satellites (one each
from Indonesia and Canada and four nano-satellites from the USA) along
with India’s Multi Wavelength Astronomical Observatory ASTROSAT, ISRO
crossed the 50 international customer satellite launch mark. All the 51
satellites from abroad launched by India so far have been placed in
orbit by India’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). During
1994-2015 period, PSLV has launched a total of 84 satellites of which
51 are for international customers.
Though PSLV was designed to
launch Indian remote sensing satellites into polar sun synchronous
orbit, the vehicle has repeatedly proved its reliability and versatility
by successfully launching satellites into a variety of orbits including
polar Sun Synchronous, Geosynchronous Transfer and Low Earth orbits of
small inclination, thereby repeatedly proving the robustness of its
design.
ISRO offers launch services to the international
customers through PSLV. ISRO entered the commercial launch services
market by launching KITSAT-3 of Republic of Korea and DLR-TUBSAT of
Germany along with IRS-P4 (OCEANSAT) onboard PSLV-C2 on May 26, 1999. So
far, International customers satellites from 20 countries (Algeria,
Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany,
Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Republic
of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and USA) have
been successfully launched by PSLV during 15 of its launches.
Antrix
Corporation Limited (Antrix), incorporated in 1992, a wholly owned
Government of India Company under the administrative control of
Department of Space (DOS) and the commercial arm of ISRO has already
entered into a number of agreements for launching satellites for
international customers onboard PSLV. Antrix promotes and commercially
exploits the products and services emanating from the Indian Space
Programme. In addition to providing launch services for international
customer satellites, Antrix provisions communication satellite
transponders for broadcasting and telecommunication services, markets
data from Indian Remote Sensing(IRS) satellites, builds and markets
satellites and satellites subsystems and extends mission support
services for satellite launches.
The outlook for commercial
launches is promising for ISRO/Antrix with many other proposals from
international customers under active discussion and consideration.
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