ISRO chief Mr A.S. Kiran Kumar has said that the agency is hopeful of roping in private players to build a consortium that would primarily build launch vehicles. The focus of such consortium would be to capture the global market for satellite launching. Breaking a record set by Russia, ISRO earlier this year launched 104 satellites using a single Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the agency’s most trusted launcher. With a consortium, ISRO plans to raise the number of PSLVs so that the frequency of launches can match the number of launch vehicles. The aim is to increase ISRO’s annual launches to 24, Mr Kumar said, while also boosting its existing constellation of 42 satellites. ISRO is preparing for inter-planetary missions as well as launching India’s second lunar probe mission — Chandrayaan-2. ISRO has invited proposals from the scientific community on the possible programs that could be launched for its inter-planetary missions for Venus, Mars and some of the asteroids. The average annual revenue of the international satellite market over the last three years has been estimated at approximately $200 billion. ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix reportedly earned approximately $36 million in 2015-16 through commercial launch services, which is about 0.6 per cent of the global launch service market, according to Mr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for the Department of Space.
Source: https://sputniknews.com/
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