Bellatrix Aerospace CEO Rohan Ganapathy stands next to a vacuum chamber at their laboratory in Bengaluru.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Bengaluru: A new agreement between NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) and Bellatrix Aerospace has formalised the integration of Pushpak, Bellatrix’s orbital transfer vehicle (OTV), into missions launched by NSIL.
NSIL, Isro's commercial arm, and the Bengaluru-headquartered Bellatrix signed an MoU in this connection at the recently concluded Bangalore Space Expo.
Pushpak is a multi-mission spacecraft for in-orbit manoeuvring and comes with the flexibility to deploy satellites into various orbits with greater precision and efficiency. Bellatrix said the partnership would enable “more complex” space missions involving multi-orbit deployment sequences, inclination change, geostationary orbit transfer missions, and future deep space missions.
D Radhakrishnan, CMD of NSIL, said the partnership supported Bellatrix in launching its OTV module to enhance launch options for rideshare customers.
“Due to varied mission requirements, it is challenging to accommodate multiple customer payloads on a single launch vehicle, forcing satellite operators to either wait for a favourable launch opportunity or opt for an expensive dedicated launch,” Rohan M Ganapathy, co-founder, CEO and CTO of Bellatrix, said.
Yashas Karanam, co-founder and COO of Bellatrix, said the company offered two models as part of its OTV solutions — deployment as a service and hosting as a service. While the deployment model accelerates the launch process and enables the satellite operators to generate revenue faster, the hosting service caters to those who can't afford an entire satellite bus for scientific or technology experiments.