ISRO's bid to get industry to produce polar satellite launch vehicles reaches significant milestone

Bengaluru: ISRO's bid to get industry to produce its highly successful polar satellite launch vehicle reached a significant milestone on Friday when propellant ingredients for the solid motors were delivered to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota for the inaugural flight of the industry-manufactured PSLV N1.

The Department of Space, through its commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), had in September last year placed a Rs 860 crore order with a consortium of L&T and HAL to build five PSLVs towards productionisation of the third generation launch vehicle of India.

Productionisation in general refers to the process of turning a prototype of a design into a version that can be more easily mass-produced. The date of the inaugural flight of the PSLV N1 is yet to be finalised. As part of the initial phase of producing solid motors for the inaugural PSLV N1 launch, the consortium delivered the essential propellant ingredients at SDSC-SHAR, at an event attended by ISRO Chairman S Somanath and senior officials of ISRO, NSIL, L&T Defence and HAL officials.