The Indian authorities’s effort to privatise a part of its area programme by opening bids to construct its small satellite tv for pc launch rocket has attracted preliminary curiosity from 20 firms, an official overseeing the method instructed Reuters.

India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) was developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the nationwide area company, and had its first profitable satellite tv for pc launch in February.

The SSLV was designed as a low-cost means to launch satellites weighing as much as 500 kg into low-earth orbit, serving a booming market to launch clusters of satellites for communications and information that SpaceX and rivals now serve.

Under a coverage pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is following Nasa’s lead in opening launch and different area companies to personal funding.

The bid to take over the manufacturing and improvement of the SSLV rocket programme was the primary privatisation of its sort below that coverage.

India’s newly created area regulatory physique, the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, often known as IN-SPACe, opened the method on July 11 by permitting certified firms to register an curiosity.

Pawan Goenka, chairman of IN-SPACe, stated 20 firms had submitted an “expression of interest” (EOI) within the rocket programme.

IN-SPACe can have a pre-EOI session with these 20 candidates inside two weeks, Goenka instructed Reuters. He didn’t identify the businesses.

To be eligible to bid, firms must be worthwhile and the lead bidder in a consortium has to have not less than 5 years of producing expertise and annual income of 4 billion Indian rupees ($48.8 million).

India is aiming to extend its share of the worldwide satellite tv for pc launch market by five-fold throughout the subsequent decade.

Goenka beforehand stated the regulator expects that the successful bidder for the SSLV programme would be capable to develop the small-satellite launch enterprise and make India “the global hub for such launches”.