SLN Technologies, a little-known Bangalore company, can today claim a fraction of credit for the success of the much-talked about Chandayaan?I, the first moon mission from India. It is the proud developer of antenna control servo system for 32 meter DSN antenna that rode on Chandrayaan-I. A provider of embedded systems solutions for aerospace segment, SLN had a modest turnover of only a few lakh rupees till five years ago. But few big orders have changed its fortunes. It touched Rs 8 crore in 2007-08 and expects to double its revenue current fiscal and seems confident of crossing Rs 100 crore in five years. The reason for this sudden growth? DR Subramaniam, director of SLN says, ?We are making products for Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro).?
SLN is just one of the thousands of tiny and small-scale companies in India that have started benefiting from Isro?s increased space participation even as majority of other sectors in the country face a slowdown. As Isro is actively working for more foreign deals to build and launch satellites to have a sizeable share in the $2.5 billion global space business, the local industries are hoping to bag orders worth thousands of crores of rupees from Isro.
According to M Annadurai, project director of Chandrayaan-I, Isro plans to increase the number of launches to five per year from the current 2-3 launches. He says the plan is to launch two vehicles for communication and one each for remote sensing, science and navigation per year.
While increasing the number of launches, Isro has also decided to tune the domestic companies to manufacture or assemble larger systems for its launch vehicles and satellites. ?So far, these have been supporting Isro for producing parts basically like rocket water casing, engine components, structures, electronic assembly etc,? says N Narayanamurthy, project director of GSLV Mk-III in Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Isro?s lead centre to develop launch vehicles. But the industries are lagging in making systems. Except a public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), where a stage of launch vehicle GSLV is being assembled, other major systems are made in the Isro campus, he says. As Isro staff starts putting their efforts more on the future projects, includingre-entry launch vehicle (RLV) and manned mission, Isro would handover all those proven systems to the industry to develop, according to Narayanamurthy.
?So now we are discussing with various industries to provide us with systems on a sustainable basis,? he adds. L&T, Godrej, MTAR (Hyderabad), Brahmos Aerospace and HAL are a few major players that are holding talks with Isro to supply larger systems, Narayanamurthy says, adding, ?We have to make it happen in the next three years.?
According to the budget report of department of space (DoS) for 2008-09, more than 500 small, medium and large-scale companies participate in the space programmes in the form of hardware development and supply, software and other services.
These 500 companies, in turn offer jobs to around 5,000 small industries, says PS Kannan of Vajra Rubber Products Ltd, a small industry in Kerala that increased its turnover from below Rs 1 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 12 crore in the last fiscal by supplying typical rubber products to launch vehicle PSLV. For instance, the aerospace division of HAL in Bangalore alone has vendor-base of around 80 suppliers, each having turnover in the range of Rs 3-25 crore, a HAL official says requesting anonymity.
In the recently developed space applications in India, almost 100% of the ground segment equipments and services for tele-education and tele-medicine have been sourced from Indian firms. So far, DoS has developed and transferred 285 technologies to industries for commercialisation. It has provided 270 technical consultancies in various fields to facilitate the Indian industries to acquire the required technical know-how in the space technology, the DoS report says. However with the current rate of 2-3 launches per year, the large-scale industries may not show much interest in producing larger systems for Isro. Hence the space agency is funding for the equipments in large-scale industries to assemble systems for both launch vehicles and satellites. Once the companies, which received Isro funds, reach breakeven, the funds offered by Isro will be deducted on the actual cost of systems supplied to Isro, Narayanamurthy says.
G Madhavan Nair, chairman of Isro says that one-third of the space budget is spent in the Indian industry. The budget outlay for space in the tenth five-year plan stood at Rs 15,000 crore and it has been doubled to around Rs 30,000 crore for the eleventh plan. That means, 60% or Rs 18,000 crore businesses will come to the Indian industry.
According to official sources, another strong reason for Isro?s bid to outsource most of its work to local industries is the shortage of manpower. The workforce of Isro is stagnated at around 16,000 employees for many years now. Most of them were recruited during the initial years of the research organisation and now is the time for them to retire from service. Isro is hiring in the range of 200-300 engineers per year, but the retirement ratio is double of that, sources inform.
Currently Isro has two launch vehicles?PSLV that can inject small satellites weighing 1.3 tonne into a polar orbit and GSLV that can inject payloads of 2-2.5 tonne. To clinch more foreign deals, Isro requires a heavyweight launch vehicle. So, it is developing GSLV Mark-III, a cost effective launch vehicle capable of carrying 4-tonne class of communication satellites in geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) and up to 10 tonne satellites in low earth orbit (400-500 kms above the earth). The first development flight of GSLV Mark-III is expected in 2009-10. In addition, an Isro official says the space agency is now building a low cost-smaller launcher designed to inject remote-sensing satellites, weighing less than 500-kg into low earth orbits. Such launchers will cost 35-40% less than existing rockets. Once these launchers come into stream, he says it would attract more international customers while also catering to the country?s defence sector.
So far, Isro has launched 15 foreign satellites. In fact, Isro marked its entry into commercial launch market when its PSLV-C2 injected two foreign satellites, Kitsat-3 of Korea and Tubsat of Germany in May 1999 and it further strengthened its space business when it launched 353-kg Italian satellite Agile last year and 300-kg Israeli spy rocket early this year. In addition, Isro?s successful commercial satellite launches of BIRD (Germany), PROBA (Belgium), Lapan Tubsat (Indonesia), Pehuensat-1 (Argentina) have further widened its launch business.
The alliance between EADS Astrium, a leading European satellite system specialist, and Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of Isro, has already bagged two satellite contracts from Paris-based Eutelsat and Avanti Screen Media of the UK to make W2M and Hylas satellites respectively. The W2M spacecraft, a $30 million contract for Astrium-Antrix, is under preparation for launch. Isro was responsible for designing the spacecraft, building the spacecraft platform, integrating the foreign instruments onboard, according to Isro chairman. ?In the next five years, Indian space programme has an ambitious goal of launching several satellites for applications in communications, navigation, disaster management and all weather remote sensing,? he adds.
While the local industries have benefited from Isro?s programmes, its own commercial arm Antrix Corporation is also climbing the profit ladder steadily. The turnover of Antrix stood at Rs 367.17crore in 2004-05 and nearly doubled to Rs 660 crore in 2006-07, while it increased by whopping 42% to Rs 940 crore in 2007-08. Around 50-60% of turnover comes through transponder service, says KR Sridhar Murthy, managing director of Antrix. Isro plans to add another 300 transponders by launching more communication satellites in the next five years in addition to the current 211 transponders, he adds.
With space business growing fast in India, companies willing to spend time to produce customised equipments and systems for space segment will have lucrative and ensured business in the future, sums up Ganesh Mani Iyer, technical director of Mumbai-based small industry Electronic Components Pvt Ltd, which supplies specialised ohm capacity resistors to the satellites of Isro.
