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The Rediff Business Special/ M D Riti

PSLV puts Isro's arm Antrix in Orbit M

Orbit M. M for money. That is the new frontier that the Indian Space Research Organisation -- ISRO -- is seeking to zoom into.

'Welcome aboard the PSLV,' says a bright and colourful poster. 'We can help you reach your destination in a manner that only friends can.' After their first successful commercial satellite launch a month ago, ISRO is going all out to canvas for customers for its launch vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle or PSLV. "We are desperately -- no, no, please change that to enthusiastically! -- looking for clients who will pay us to put their 500 or 600 kg satellites into orbit," says N Sampath, executive director of the Antrix Corporation, ISRO's commercial wing.

In May this year, PSLV-C2 placed two commercial auxiliary satellites, the Korean satellite KITSAT-3 and the German satellite DLR-TUBSAT, into orbit along with ISRO's own satellite the Oceansat (IRS-P4). "The success of this launch has suddenly generated a lot of interest in our launch vehicle," says Sampath. "We now have requests from five or six more customers to launch satellites in the 50 to 100 kilogram class. If only we can find one heavier satellites like our Oceansat to go with them, we can send them up in even six months from now."

Otherwise, they have identified commercial satellites of the 500 kg class which will be ready by 2001. Actually, PSLV offers at least four different payload configurations: one primary and one auxiliary satellite, two small payloads in tandem, four mini satellites and six micro satellites. Technically speaking, it is possible for them to assemble four or six satellites and send them up at one time.

However, Antrix points out that the logistics of actually co-ordinating six different clients, all from different countries, and getting them to assemble their satellites in one place at one time might be difficult to handle. The kind of small institutions that they will be dealing with, like universities, may neither be able to get their satellites ready much in advance of the launch or keep them waiting around for long once they are set. However, Antrix is still ambitiously advertising widely "a special PSLV launch without strap-ons during the last quarter of 2000 dedicated for micro-satellites".

Unfortunately, the biggest manufacturer and launcher of 500 kg class satellites is the US government and its scientific agencies, which can be launched only from the US. Then, there are three agencies in Europe that will need such launchers, but some of them might be looking for partners who will also invest in their programmes and launch their satellites.

This is part of a worldwide trend amongst the smaller satellite manufacturers, who consider this one way to ensure that the launch provider has a genuine commitment to the outcome of the launch, as it can recover its investment only from the returns brought in by the satellite. Sampath says Antrix might have to consider investing something like $ 5 million into a launch which would be priced at, say, $ 20 million.

This kind of reciprocal arrangement is very common for companies like Lockheed Martin of the US: ISRO itself has a two per cent stake in the American satellite consortium the Intelsat, which is a major client of Antrix.

Sampat says they can manage up to three commercial launches a year. Six PSLVs have already been ordered together, out of which only two have been launched. The rest are already in the pipeline, and can be readied at very short notice. As the global space community is very small, ISRO will depend largely on word-of-mouth publicity.

The success of their satellites and launches will be the best advertisement they can hope for. However, they also have their array of posters and brochures ready, and hope to use Internet effectively to spread the word. Even before the launch, they optimistically advertised their capabilities in Space News.

The important question for Amtrix is, how should it price a satellite launch on the PSLV for the foreign customer? "About $ 20 million," says Sampath. This would make it much cheaper than all other launch service providers the world over. The US launcher Pegasus, for example, which can launch satellites of upto 250 kg weight, is priced at $ 12 million to $ 15 million, and the US launcher Taurus, which can carry satellites of about 750 kg charges about $ 20 million. There is no corresponding launch vehicle in Europe to cater to this class of satellite.

The real competition is from Russia, which has several missile launchers converted into satellite launchers. They have no fixed pricing and have a wide range of capabilities ranging from 10 kg to 10 tonnes. Their launch equipment is already built and ready, so they can charge customers just for the small changes they might make from time to time to suit individual satellites.

ISRO will find it difficult to even equal their prices, let alone beat them. Officials are just hoping the advantage the Russians now have will be temporary, as their stock cannot last for too long.

Once their next class of launch vehicle, the Geo Synchronous Launch Vehicle or GSLV is operationalised, Antrix will try to market it too. That will not be possible for the next three years, though, as the GSLV should have three successful flights at least to be considered suitable for others, and the first flight is scheduled only for next year.

By then, ISRO will have its second launch pad ready at Sriharikota on the Andhra coast, a few kilometres away from their first and only one now, and much more modern and efficient than the existing one. This new pad will be designed to require a time-frame of just one month to prepare for a launch.

Then, all they will have to worry about is the manufacturing cycle time, which ISRO now describes as "comfortable", meaning that they can put together three to four vehicles, whether GSLV or PSLV, in a year. The only difference between these two types of launchers is the cryogenic engine stage and the small liquid engine strap-ons.

As of now, three private companies are making liquid engines for them: Godrej, Keltech and MTAR (Hyderabad). ISRO has six or seven engines in stock, and indigenous manufacture of these engines, after much trial and travail, is now close to coming through. Sampat estimates that in another four years, we should be able to make our own cryogenic engines to fuel our GSLVs.

By 2002, ISRO should have two launch pads, have both the GSLV and the PSLV ready for commercial hire and a ready supply of cryogenic engines. Antrix is reluctant to commit itself to a price for a GSLV launch at this point.

However, the Delta2 of the US, which is a launcher of the same two tonne capacity, charges about $ 45 million to $ 50 million per launch. ISRO, in keeping with its policy of being cheaper than other vehicles the world over, will probably pitch theirs a little lower. The French Arianespace launcher, which India has been using so far to launch the Insats, costs about $ 250 million, because it puts three two-tonners into orbit at the same time.

Antrix also wants to sell its satellites, made at ISRO Satellite Centre at Bangalore. However, Sampat readily admits they are still at the stage of trying to educate their customers about their capabilities in this direction. The problem that they face is fear about their reliability.

Antrix has to compete with big US companies which have launched hundreds of satellites successfully as against the ten or so that ISRO has sent up successfully. As it costs five times the satellite price to launch any satellite, buyers prefer tried and proven manufacturers.

"The success rate of your satellites matters vastly in such situations," says Sampath. "We have launched five Insats, out of which one is a failure, which means our success rate is 80 percent. Hughes, on the other hand, had launched 120 satellites out of which 80 are successful, but the point is that it is the last 80 that have succeeded!

"These are the factors that financial companies that back satellite makers consider. We are now trying hard to see what factors would make our ratings go up with the financial companies. Then, we are also trying to sell to the local market, which we hope will come forward to buy satellites, once the new satcom policy has been fully implemented."

However, Antrix is selling several satellite components and subsystems, as well as software related to satellite operations and control, to several well-known international agencies. ISRO has also been working towards building what it describes as "strategic alliances" with foreign space agencies in order to break into the global space market. "By supplying big companies with small parts, we are trying to show them the quality of our manufacture and after-sales service," says Sampath.

So, Antrix has tied up with some of the biggest names in the world like EOSAT (the US), Intelsat (the US) and Inmarsat (the UK) to market their hardware, software and services. EOSAT is already selling Indian remote sensing technology, Intelsat has leased transponders on the Insat.

Last year, Antrix had an annual turnover of Rs 320 million. Six years ago, when they first started out, they had an annual turnover of just Rs 5 million. They hope to touch the Rs 1 billion mark by 2001.

However, commercialisation continues to be a low priority for Antrix's parent Organisation, ISRO, which continues to be a programme dedicated to serving national needs. "Developing our satellites and launchers for our own needs, to meet national objectives, is always our first priority," says ISRO chairman Dr K Kasturirangan. "But once that is done, we would be happy to earn back through commercialisation of some of the huge investment that the country has made into space research."

Sampath sums up ISRO's attitude towards commercialisation quite aptly when he says: "I am not going to set targets for Antrix at all. It is more important that we set targets for the country."

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