ISRO Setting Up Next-Generation Launch Vehicle For Heavier Payloads By 2030: Here's All You Need To Know About It

With India setting its sights on its own space station by 2035, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) proposed to the industry to unite with it in engineering a reusable rocket capable of carrying heavier payloads into the earth's orbit.

Called the Next-Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV), ISRO Chairman S Somanath stated that the space agency was experimenting with the rocket's design and would like the space industry to collaborate with it in its development.

ISRO's Vision For The Future!

"The intent is to bring industry along in the development process. All the money need not be invested by us. We want the industry to invest to create this rocket for all of us," Somanath was quoted as saying by the Times Of India.

He further added that the rocket is set to carry a 10-tonne payload in earth's Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) or nearly 20 tonnes to the low orbit of our planet.

Meanwhile, another ISRO official stated that this new rocket could be really helpful as India plans to have its very own space station by 2035 and also wants to conduct deep space missions, cargo missions, and human space flights and put multiple communication satellites into orbit at the same time.

Next-Generation Launch Vehicle

The Next-Generation Launch Vehicle -- aka NGLV -- is envisioned as a straightforward, robust machinery built for bulk manufacturing that would make space transportation way more cost-effective.

The ISRO chairman revealed that the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), the warhorse rocket of ISRO, was based on the technology developed in the 1980s and can no way be used for rocket launching in the near future. It had plans to have the entire design of the NGLV done within a year or so and offer it to the industry for production, with its inaugural launch tentatively set to take place in 2030.

The NGLV might turn out to be a three-stage rocket powered by green fuel combinations, like kerosene and liquid oxygen or methane and liquid oxygen.

As per a presentation done by Somanath at a recent conference in October, the NGLV might offer launch costs of approximately $1900 per kg of payload in the reusable form and nearly $3,000 per kg in the expendable format.

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