Flying low: Delayed missions, a few orders bog ISRO down

Successive failures in meeting deadlines and too few orders from international customers have made the future of Indian Space Research Organisation look bleak, say top space scientists.

“ISRO has not won a single international order in the last 30 months. The orders for SARAL and SPOT- 6 satellites were won in 2008,” says G Madhavan Nair, former chairman, ISRO. A polar satellite launch vehicle was scheduled to launch SARAL, an Indo-French venture, in early 2011.

Nair says the orders for launching SARAL, a French satellite, and SPOT-6, a satellite built by Astrium, the global majors, were won amid cut-throat competition during his tenure as the chairman of ANTRIX, ISRO’s international marketing arm. ISRO itself has declared that the MoUs for launching the two were signed in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Since Nair’s retirement, the agency has not managed to win any new contract for launching or building satellites.

It may be recalled that ISRO had built HYLAS, a modern communication satellite for EADS-Astrium, the European space consortium. The satellite was launched into a geostationary orbit from the European space agency’s spaceport at French Guyana in 2010. “That was the last major commercial order executed by ISRO. Since then, we have been launching mini and micro satellites for countries which are green horns in space science,” says a senior ISRO scientist.

It is surprising that even the countries with whom India has friendly relations are shying away from ISRO and entrusting their space requirements to other countries,” he added.

He was referring to Lockheed Martin, the US space giant, walking away with the order to build VINASAT-2, a communication satellite for Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group. VINASAT-2, to be launched by an Ariane rocket from French Guyana, will be used for telecommunication, DTH services and radio broadcast. It belongs to the INSAT and GSAT series of satellites built by ISRO.

However, S Satish, ISRO’s official spokesman, disagrees and says, “We may not have commercial orders right now from foreign customers other than SPOT-6, but we are in discussions with international agencies for fabricating and launching satellites.”

But Nair remains worried. “If this trend continues, ISRO engineers may have to start looking for new jobs,” he says.

Another scientist from Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, says that all missions are running behind schedule and this is proving costly for the country. “We are losing credibility in the international arena in the backdrop of delayed missions,” he says.