ISRO's commercial arm to hire to meet requirements of space startups

New Space India Limited (NSIL), the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), has announced that it will hire at least 26 personnel as soon as possible to help meet the commercial rocket launch requirements of Indian and foreign space startups.

As reported by Times of India, according to Radhakrishnan Durairaj, Chairman and Managing Director, NSIL, the entity would be hiring from the open market and the private sector and would also be looking to hire more employees later in the year. He said, "The hiring is for a variety of roles ranging from engineers to finance officers and legal experts. Once the process is complete, we are discussing another round of hiring, for about 40 positions, in the coming year."

Created in 2019, NSIL is responsible for coordinating ISRO's commercial activities, including allocating space on launch vehicles for private satellites.

Radhakrishnan also discussed the upcoming rocket launches and the satellites that would go with them. In the next 18 months, NSIL has at least six commercial missions planned. The first one will be the launch of a satellite constellation with Bharti-backed One Web.

One Web is a mission aimed at providing internet connectivity to underserved locations and populations via satellite connections. The project is similar to SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper.

Radhakrishnan confirmed that NSIL would be looking to launch the second set of One Web satellites by the first quarter of 2023 and that three launches were planned additionally with foreign satellite manufacturers as customers.