Article Posted on : - Jan 14, 2019

The PSLV rocket. A file photo

BENGALURU (PTI): The Indian Space Research Organisation Friday said that its strategic partners Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and L&T have signed an MoU to manufacture the industry-made Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

ISRO has initiated an action plan to get the PSLV production ready through industry, with the Government clearing the proposal.

PSLV has been ISRO's workhorse with 45 flights, including India's successful missions to the Moon and Mars.

Until now, public and private industries have been supplying devices, components and sub-systems for the PSLV.

ISRO is taking steps to hand over the entire gamut of launch vehicle manufacture to domestic industry by 2020.

"Anticipating such a proposal and earlier interactions, the current strategic partners of ISRO -- HAL and L&T -- signed an MoU for realising the PSLV stages and supply to ISRO, making use of existing supply chain for materials and components and production and integration facilities of ISRO," the space agency said on its website.

ISRO Chairman K Sivan said that a consortium has already been created between L&T and HAL and they are ready to take up the production of PSLV.

Terming it as a "major milestone", he said "L&T and HAL have already come together. They have signed an agreement.

They came and spoke to me yesterday...now in this consortium, other companies are also going to join."

Citing several advanced time-bound projects like the commercialisation of GSLV Mk III, Gaganyaan human space mission and other advanced space exploration missions, ISRO said its limited resources would be utilised for these projects for their timely completion, where a lot of Research and Development is involved.

"The regular production of PSLV shall be realised by an industry consortium and ISRO will confine itself to do mission analysis and planning and configuration controls," it said.

PSLV, a "versatile" vehicle designed and developed by ISRO, has been successfully deployed for remote sensing, Navigation, communication and deep space missions.

According to ISRO, the reliability of the vehicle is as high as 0.97 and the vehicle is gaining importance in the international market as the demand for satellite launches are increasing continuously from customers, in addition to domestic users.