The commercial arm of ISRO, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) will launch GSAT-20 (renamed as GSAT-N2), on-board SpaceX’s Falcon-9 in the course of the second quarter of 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The commercial arm of ISRO, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) will launch GSAT-20 (renamed as GSAT-N2), on-board SpaceX’s Falcon-9 in the course of the second quarter of 2024.
The GSAT-20 is a high- throughput Ka-band Satellite which might be absolutely owned, operated and funded by NSIL.
According to NSIL, GSAT-20 gives Ka-Ka band HTS capability with 32 beams having Pan-India protection together with Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.
The satellite, weighing 4700 kg, gives an HTS capability of practically 48Gpbs and has been particularly designed to meet the demanding service wants of distant and unconnected areas.
As a part of the house sector reforms introduced by the Govt. of India in June 2020, NSIL was mandated to construct, launch, personal and function satellites in “Demand-driven mode” to meet service wants of the person.
As a part of this, NSIL efficiently undertook its 1st Demand-driven satellite mission, GSAT-24 in June 2022, whereby the capacity- board of the satellite was absolutely secured by TataPlay. GSAT-24 mission was absolutely funded by NSIL. Presently, NSIL owns and operates 11 communication satellites in orbit.
“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,” NSIL stated.
It added that NSIL is realising the GSAT-20 satellite by ISRO and might be launched on-board Falcon-9 beneath a launch service contract between NSIL and SpaceX, USA.
According to SpaceX, Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by the Elon Musk-founded firm for the dependable and secure transport of individuals and payloads into Earth orbit and past.
It added that Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket.
“Reusability allows SpaceX to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access,” states SpaceX.
