ISRO's (Indian Space Research Oragnisation) commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) announced on Wednesday (January 3) that it will use Elon Musk-led SpaceX's Falcon-9 for one of its mission launches later this year.
The mission to launch GSAT-20, has been slated for a launch in second quarter of this year. This mission will be the first time ISRO will be using a SpaceX rocket to launch one of its satellites.
On Wednesday, NSIL made the announcement in an official press release which was also posted on X, formerly Twitter, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
In its tweet, NSIL has said that GSAT-20 [GSAT-N2] will be ISRO's second 'demand driven satellite mission' aimed at meeting India's communication needs.
"NSIL is releasing GSAT-20 satellite through Isro and will be launched on board Falcon 9 under a launch service contract between M/s NSIL and M/s SpaceX, USA," NSIL said in its press release.
NSIL's first demand-driven mission GSAT-24 was launched in June 2022. The capacity of this satellite was fully secured by Tata Play.
“On similar lines, during the second of 2024, NSIL will be undertaking the GSAT-20 satellite mission to offer cost-effective Ka-Ka band HTS capacity primarily for meeting the Broadband, as well as IFMC and cellular backhaul service needs. The bulk of the HTS capacity on-board GSAT-20 satellite has already been secured by Indian service providers,” said NSIL in its press release.
Falcon 9 rocket has been described as world's first 'orbital class reusable rocket'. Till date, it has carried out 285 launches, 217 re-flights and 243 landings. Experts have been quoted in media reports as saying that although collaboration between ISRO and SpaceX open up many possibilities for future, use of Falcon 9 rocket underlines need for ISRO to develop rockets that send heavier satellites into space.
(With inputs from agencies)