Thiruvananthapuram: Keralite G Narayanan led the first mission of NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
G Narayanan is the Chairman and Managing Director of the NSIL, a Central Public Sector Enterprise under the administrative control of Department of Space.
The first commercial mission of the NSIL was the launch of Brazil's Amazonia-1 satellite on ISRO's PSLV-C51 rocket from Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. (Eighteen minor payloads too accompanied Amazonia-1, but they were not part of the NSIL deal with Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.)
A native of Palakkad, Narayanan had earlier worked as the deputy director of the ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre in Thiruvananthapuram and also as the first secretary in the space wing of the Indian Embassy in Paris.
Set up by the central government, the NSIL is entrusted with the responsibility of identifying the opportunities and commercially exploiting the global space market.
The challenge before the NSIL is how to capitalise on India's status as the country that launches rockets at lower costs. The NSIL has entered into commercial contracts with several private institutions that require satellite services.
The GSAT-24 satellite, scheduled to be launched in September, would be taken over by the NISL and handed over to DTH service companies.
