India: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has teamed up with private sector to develop a satellite that will be launched in space very soon.
A consortium led by Alpha Design Technologies has been chosen to make two full satellites for India’s navigation system – NAVIC. A team of 70 engineers is working in-tandem to make a flight ready satellite in the next six months.
Leading the consortium, Colonel H S Shankar, Chairman and MD of Alpha Design Technologies, is keeping a hawk’s eye on the fabrication process. He says, “it is a challenging task for any Indian company to undertake assembly, integration and testing of a satellite and that too for the first time in India.”
Through such partnerships, ISRO want to seed an ecosystem where private sector can take a lead in the future.
M Annadurai, Director of ISRO Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, says, “Basically there is a gap between what we are capable of doing now versus what we are supposed to make. There is a gap between the requirement and our capability. That gap we want to fill up with support from the industry.”
”…16 to 17 satellites we have to make every year. So it is a really-really quantum jump. And to fill that gap, we thought the industry could come in,” he said.
