The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) is looking at a consortium for building launch vehicles in a bid to capture a larger slice of the global space industry, ISRO’s chief AS Kiran Kumar said on Monday.Kumar emphasised on shoring up the building capacity within the organisation as well in the domestic industry.

ISRO’s plan

Kumar said ISRO plans to increase the number of launches. “We are trying to look at a consortium, a joint venture entity, to build launch vehicles,” said Kumar.

ISRO has plans to increase the number of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV).

“It is a question of capacity building to capture a portion of the global market,” Kumar told reporters at an event in New Delhi.

“We are trying to increase the frequency of launches so that we can put sufficient infrastructure in place to meet our communication, remotes-sensing, earth observation and navigation requirements,” Kumar said.

Till now India’s most trusted satellite launcher is the PSLV series. The PSLV is the first Indian launch vehicle equippe with liquid stages. During 1994-2017 period, the vehicle has launched a total of 257 satellites including Indian and foreign satellites.

In picture: The fully integrated PSLV-C38 at the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota before it is launched on Friday, June 23, 2017.

The record-breaking 104 satellites launched at one go put into space with the help of the PSLV.

Besides, the vehicle successfully launched two spacecraft – Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 – that later travelled to Moon and Mars respectively.