The GSAT-20 is a high- throughput Ka-band Satellite which will be fully owned, operated and funded by NSIL

The commercial arm of ISRO, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) will launch GSAT-20 (renamed as GSAT-N2), on-board SpaceX’s Falcon-9 during the second quarter of 2024.

According to NSIL, GSAT-20 offers Ka-Ka band HTS capacity with 32 beams having Pan-India coverage including Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.

The satellite, weighing 4,700 kg, offers an HTS capacity of nearly 48Gpbs and has been specifically designed to meet the demanding service needs of remote and unconnected regions.

As part of the space sector reforms announced by the Govt. of India in June 2020, NSIL was mandated to build, launch, own and operate satellites in “Demand-driven mode” to meet service needs of the user.

As part of this, NSIL successfully undertook its 1st Demand-driven satellite mission, GSAT-24 in June 2022, wherein the capacity- board of the satellite was fully secured by TataPlay. GSAT-24 mission was fully funded by NSIL. Presently, NSIL owns and operates 11 communication satellites in orbit.

“On similar lines, during the second of 2024, NSIL will be undertaking the GSAT-20 satellite mission to offer cost-effective Ka-Ka band HTS capacity primarily for meeting the Broadband, as well as IFMC and cellular backhaul service needs. The bulk of the HTS capacity on-board GSAT-20 satellite has already been secured by Indian service providers,” NSIL said.

It added that NSIL is realising the GSAT-20 satellite through ISRO and will be launched on-board Falcon-9 under a launch service contract between NSIL and SpaceX, USA.

According to SpaceX, Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by the Elon Musk-founded company for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond.

It added that Falcon-9 is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket.

“Reusability allows SpaceX to re-fly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access,” states SpaceX.