The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has had low earnings from satellite launches. But ISRO has witnessed a gradual increase in its revenues. It is definitely a memorable incident in any space agency’s history. From April 2015 to March 2018, Isro has earned Rs 5,600 crore from marketing products and services which include the launching of satellites for customers, that too from other countries. In 2017-18, the larger part of the revenue was earned which totaled up to Rs 1,932 crore. In 2016-17 the revenue was a little less.
ISRO earnings amount was around Rs 1,872 crore. However, during the same time frame, ISRO spent Rs 7,209 crore in the areas of space transportation system, earth observation, satellite communication and navigation, space science and planetary exploration.
ISRO’s main earning came from the satellites launched for various communication services. Reliance and Sun Network uses ISRO’s satellites. Currently, they have 84 major clients and in the time period between the years 2015 to 2018, ISRO launched 99 satellites, 69 of which were foreign satellites. However, all the commercial launches have been micro and nanosatellites sharing space with the main satellite.
The revenue we earn trhough foreign satellite launches is only 10% to 20% on average, while more than 75% of our revenue comes from satellite communication business. The remaining comes from other services, with transponder leasing and revenue coming from ground station services abroad. We are looking to increase dedicated commercial (where the main and only payload will be a client’s) launches, but that’s based on the availability of launch vehicles after internal needs are met. – S Rakesh, Antrix chairman and managing director
In order to make more money, ISRO needs to have at least 18 launches a year. This year in September, ISRO’s PSLV will exclusively launch two UK earth observation satellites and the cost of each PSLV is pegged at Rs 350 crore.
