BENGALURU : State-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd has won a bid to commercially make India’s small satellite launch rockets, in the government’s biggest move yet to open its fast-growing space industry to private players.
Fighter jet maker HAL won with a bid of 5.11 billion rupees ($59 million), space regulator the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre said on Friday.
Reuters reported in February that three consortiums – Alpha Design Technologies, a unit of Adani Defence Systems and Technologies, state-backed Bharat Dynamics and HAL – were the finalists to acquire India’s Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) technology.
“One of the big things we have been wanting to do is to make India the global hub for small satellite launches,” Pawan Goenka, chairman of IN-SPACe told reporters.
Shares of HAL rose as much as 1.6 per cent to hit a session high of 4,980 rupees after the announcement.
Handing SSLV’s technology to HAL marks a significant shift for India’s space industry, which has already granted satellite communication service licenses to global and domestic firms such as France’s Eutelsat and Reliance Jio’s satellite venture.
The rocket is capable of carrying 500kg payloads to low-Earth orbit.
HAL will have the capability to build, own, and commercialize SSLV launches, Goenka added.
HAL intends to offer a “very competitive” price on launches both for India and international clients, said Barenya Senapati, Director (Finance) at Hindustan Aeronautics.
About 20 companies had initially expressed interest in bidding for the SSLV, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policy drive to open up India’s space industry.
The global low-Earth orbit launch vehicle market was valued at $13.9 billion in 2023 and is estimated to grow to about $44 billion by 2032, according to Global Market Insights.
India, which accounts for only 2 per cent of the global space economy, is eyeing a fivefold expansion to $44 billion by the end of the decade.
Hindustan Aeronautics and Larsen & Toubro, an industrial conglomerate, have a government contract to manufacture and deliver larger rockets to Indian Space Research Organisation.
The first of those are due for launch between October and December, said Radhakrishnan Durairaj, chairman and managing director of New Space India Limited, the commercial arm of ISRO.
($1 = 86.5900 Indian rupees)
