HAL-L&T wins Rs 860 cr deal to build PSLV rockets

BENGALURU: The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited-L&T consortium has won a Rs 860 crore deal from NewSpace India Limited to build five rockets, marking industry’s maiden foray into end-to-end production of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLVs). The contract is for manufacturing five PSLV rockets, the versatile workhorse launch vehicle of India, sources said.

After the techno-commercial evaluation of three bids, HAL-L&T consortium had emerged as the technically qualified and the L1 bidder to undertake end-to-end production of PSLV.

“We have now signed the service level agreement with the industry for production,” an official of NSIL, a central public sector enterprise under the Department of Space (DoS) and commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), said.

“May be in less than two years, we will be able to deliver the first rocket,” the official added.

ISRO could see India touch 8% of global space on back of hard work by pvt sector

India’s space sector accounts for two per cent of the global space economy, but can aim to touch eight per cent on the back of hard work by the private sector with hand holding from space agency ISRO, a top official has said.

The new space policy, which is expected to be unveiled soon, will remove most of the constraints faced by private players, who can look forward to building satellites, leasing out transponders, building launch vehicles and exploring the world of space-based applications.

“The most important objective of the space policy is to promote and facilitate the private sector playing a key role in the space sector,” Pawan Kumar Goenka, Chairman, Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) said. Goenka said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) could play more of a role in development of technology, ecosystem and infra to drive commercial aspect of space sector.

IN-SPACe was set up in 2020 as a single-window, independent, nodal agency to promote and enhance the role of private industry players in the space sector. Since the opening up of the space sector, India’s newest space public sector undertaking NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) undertook the launch of its first dedicated commercial satellite – GSAT-24 – on June 22. The NSIL had leased out the entire satellite capacity to Tata Play for a period of 15 years.