ISRO to use Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket to launch heavy comms satellite

New Delhi, Jan 3: The Indian Space Research Organisation will use US billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket to launch a 4.7 tonne communication satellite as India doesn’t have rockets to carry such heavy satellites to space.

NewSpace India Ltd, the public sector undertaking of the Department of Space Wednesday announced signing an agreement with SpaceX to launch GSAT-20 from its launch pad on the US west coast in the second quarter of the year.

The announcement marks a departure from India’s traditional arrangement of using the French company Arianespace’s rockets to take its heavy-weight satellites to space from the European spaceport at Kourou in French Guyana.