According to Sunil Bharti Mittal, ISRO has a high chance of becoming one of the world’s top centres for commercial space launches. Businessline was present at a media roundtable celebrating the completion of OneWeb’s low-earth orbit satellite constellation when Mittal made his remarks.
On Sunday, ISRO’s LVM-3 successfully launched 36 OneWeb satellites into orbit, bringing the LEO constellation of the company’s broadband satellites up to a total of 618.
As the British Government postponed the launch of 36 broadband satellites on the Russian rocket Soyuz in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, India offered launch facilities to OneWeb, allowing them to resume their satellite launches after they had been put on indefinite hold.
“Today marks a very crucial day for India, when ISRO and NSIL establish themselves in a very specific way as a prominent participant in the commercial space launch market,” added Mittal. India, in Mittal’s opinion, is one of the top two competitors to SpaceX in the global commercial launch business and has the potential to overtake it.
India still has a crucial role to play in OneWeb, Mittal continued, not just because it has performed two crucial launches but also because the need for user terminals would rise if satellite internet becomes widely available.
Since Chinese terminals are unlikely to be recognised in the majority of the world, Mittal predicted that India will become the primary location for the fabrication of these terminals. In order to determine which Indian firms can join, Mittal is in contact with NSIL.
Allotment of satellite spectrum is necessary for the launch of OneWeb services in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has to develop a space allocation strategy that fully utilises the advantages of LEO connection, according to Mittal once more. OneWeb will have the necessary foundation to begin its satellite services by the end of July, according to Mittal, at which point it will just require clarification over the allotment of satellite spectrum, which it is now awaiting. In collaboration with Indus Towers and Nyxtra, Mittal set up two ground stations in India.
