Reliance Jio's 1,600-LEO satellite plan gets IN-SPACe technical nod, moves closer to India's first homegrown constellation

New Delhi: Space regulator IN-SPACe has adjudged Reliance Jio's proposal to deploy about 1,600 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites as "technically sound" and on par with global systems like Starlink, according to government officials who didn't want to be named.

The evaluation was conducted by the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) wing of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

Following this approval, the government can offer regulatory support to the Mukesh Ambani-owned company at the international level for securing orbital slots. The company had sought help from the government for International Telecommunications Union (ITU) filings and orbital rights through coordination with other companies.


IN-SPACe and Reliance Jio didn't respond to queries.

The move paves the way for India to set up its first local LEO constellation, key to national security and strategic defence requirements. The LEO segment is dominated by Elon Musk-owned Starlink with over 10,000 satellites. But geopolitical conflicts are pushing countries to reduce dependence on overseas satellite companies.

"The kind of capacity planned by Jio is the highest so far for India," said a person aware of the discussions. "The company has proposed to offer 4.5-5 tera bit per second (Tbps) throughput over India."

Fixed Satellite Services
In comparison, Starlink has approval for 600 Gigabit per second (Gbps) while Amazon Leo plans to have 3 Tbps capacity over India, but the company is yet to secure authorisation from IN-SPACe.

Another person said the orbital parameters, configuration and architecture of the Jio constellation allows coexistence with another Indian constellation in future.

As per the proposal, Jio plans to offer fixed satellite services such as broadband, cellular backhaul as well as mobile satellite services like direct to device. The company plans to set up 20-22 ground stations.

In its comments to the government, the space regulator is said to have highlighted the merits of the Jio proposal, including meeting strategic defence requirements and reducing dependence on overseas companies. The regulator is of the view that regulatory and other policy support should be offered to the company so that India can get its first homegrown, non-geostationary (NGSO) constellation.

Apart from the technical evaluation, initial discussions have taken place at the top level of government to see if defence payloads can be hosted on some of the LEO satellites.