Bengaluru: New Space India Ltd (NSIL), ISRO‘s new commercial section, has announced its first ‘demand-driven’ communication satellite mission as part of the government’s reforms last year.
The public sector undertaking will get its first four-tonne Ku-band communication satellite ‘Gsat-24’ made by ISRO and launched by an Ariane-5 rocket belonging to French company Arianespace.
After that, NSIL will lease the satellite capacity to Tata Sky. NSIL has been given the mandate to take up operational satellite missions through a ‘demand-driven’ model.
The PSU has to build, launch, own and operate a satellite to provide its services to committed customers. Gsat-24 will be entirely funded by NSIL.
Its satellite capacity will be leased to M/s Tata Sky for meeting their DTH application needs. NSIL plans to launch Gsat-24 in Q1 of 2022.
ISRO Chairman K Sivan recently said NSIL would acquire three communication satellites — Gsat-20, Gsat-22 and Gsat-24 — which are made by the space agency.
Prior to this, NSIL launched its first mission, the PSLV-C51 launch vehicle, which carried into orbit Brazil’s Amazonia-1 satellite and 18 co-passenger satellites.
