ISRO aims to launch 12-18 satellites per year

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said that it is looking to increase the number of satellite launches to 12-18 per year; it also underlined the need for streamlining its robust PSLV series, which would be done by adding on a new vehicle assembly building.

"We need to streamline the PSLV series and we are trying to get into more number of launches per year by increasing the capacity within in the country," said ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar.

"We are working towards some mechanism where industry-ISRO partnership will enable us to increase the number of launches per year to almost 12-18 per year in the coming years," he said.

Kumar was interacting with reporters after India successfully launched 20 satellites, including the recent earth observation Cartosat-2 series, on board PSLV-C34.

Talking about developing a three-stage PSLV, he added, "Not exactly... One of the things we will be constantly addressing is how to reduce the cost of accessing space and these studies are addressing on what methods to reduce cost of launching satellite and that will be our continuous endeavour."

Calling PSLV a versatile launch vehicle able to do different jobs and put satellites in different orbits, he also said that ISRO is under the process of streamlining this operation with improved capabilities.

He said, "Our effort is to continuously assess the situation and take corrective action at an appropriate time to improve our launch frequency."

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