ISRO PSLV to be entirely made by industry
PSLV ISRO
In a welcome step, Indian industry will soon be entirely manufacturing and realising the country's most reliable rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. This development comes after a consortium of the Government-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and private entity L&T won the bid for building five PSLV rockets, over a period of four years.
The contract for the same was exchanged between HAL and ISRO's commercial arm NSIL (New Space India Limited) during the inaugural session of the 7th Bengaluru Space Expo 2022.As part of its mandate, NSIL had invited Expression of Interest (EoI) on August 16, 2019, for realization of five PSLV-XL Launch Vehicles by Indian industry. Based on competitive bidding the HAL-led consortium emerged as the successful with their Rs.860cr bid.
Originally designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the PSLV rocket has flown over 50 successful missions (most-ever for an Indian rocket), thus earning the moniker of being the country's workhorse spacefaring machine.
In recent years, the Indian Government has been introducing reforms in the predominantly Government-controlled space sector, to enable greater participation of the private industry. While Indian industry has long been contributing as component manufacturers and suppliers of parts, the recent reforms are aimed at enabling end-to-end participation, which includes the approvals to build rockets and satellites and related ground infrastructure.
