The deal aims to jointly address the growing global market for commercial satellite launch services.
“Under the agreement, NSIL’s heavy lift LVM3 rocket and Arianespace’s Ariane-6 rocket will collaborate to meet the rising demand for launching heavy communication, earth observation and satellite constellation payloads,” NSIL said.
The move comes in the wake of Arianespace, which has launched several global satellites including from India, retiring it’s Ariane-5 launch vehicle and its Ariane-6 rocket facing delays in development.
According to NSIL ssessments of the global launch services market over the next decade predict massive growth opportunities for rockets capable of carrying large payloads into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) and low earth orbit (LEO).
However, a lot would hinge on India’s capabilities to ramp up production of the LVM-3 rocket even as efforts are on to involve the private sector to do the same.
This long-term mutual agreement aims to reinforce NSIL and Arianespace’s positions in the highly-competitive commercial launch services industry in the 2020s. Both companies are gearing up for intensifying launch activity to cater to unprecedented satellite deployment across private communication networks, IoT services and earth observation constellations.
Earlier in Jan, NSIL had announced that it will launch a high-throughput satellite on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket — the Falcon 9 — later this year.
NSIL plans to launch its second demand-driven communications satellite, the GSAT-20 (renamed GSAT-N2), in the second quarter of 2024. The satellite will be a high-throughput Ka-band satellite primarily aimed at meeting India’s growing broadband connectivity needs.
“NSIL will fully own, operate and fund the 4,700kg satellite, which can provide up to 48Gbps of capacity across 32 beams covering all of India including the Andaman, Nicobar, and Lakshadweep Islands,” the Space PSU said.
This is the first time that NSIL will launch on the US launcher. The PSU has earlier made use of the services of France’s Arianespace. NSIL looks for services abroad when the weight of the satellite is higher than the capacity of Indian launch vehicles.
