US companies’ access to the Indian launch market should continue to be restricted according to the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).
US companies’ access to the Indian launch market should continue to be restricted according to the US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).
A vote by COMSTAC following a teleconference in late January recommended that the US’s current cautious approach in granting US commercial satellite operators access to India’s state-owned and controlled launch providers be maintained.
COMSTAC decided to look at the issue again last October after an official from the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) gave a presentation to the committee, following discussions with India’s government-owned commercial launch arm Antrix about opening up its services market to American operators.
The current state of affairs has been such since 2005 when the USTR began talks for a commercial space launch agreement with India that remains unsigned following a wider US-India trade agreement called “Next Steps in Strategic Partnership”.
In 2009 the US and India signed an agreement effectively permitting the launch of civil or non-commercial satellites on Indian space launch vehicles, but specifically denied the launching of commercial satellites.
In a letter to FAA official Dr George Nield seen by SatelliteFinance, COMSTAC chair Mike Gold wrote that his committee found “India’s state-owned and controlled launch providers whose pricing structures and related costs are not able to be confirmed as market-based hold the potential to distort the conditions of competition”.
COMSTAC decided that “allowing India’s state-owned and controlled launch providers to compete with US companies runs counter to many national policies, and undermines the work that has been done by government and industry to ensure the health of the US space launch industrial base”.
The committee also noted that there were a number of US commercial launch vehicles available on the market, and many dedicated smallsat launchers in development were backed by private investment.
“Most of these new launch vehicles are scheduled to be operational in 2016 and 2017 and most are already offering their services in the marketplace,” COMSTAC said.
Gold’s letter also pointed to waivers granted by the US government for fully commercial American-built satellites to fly on India’s PSLV launch vehicle in the past year, despite the lack of a formal agreement with India, and without determining if launching US satellites on Indian launch vehicles distorts competition.
The COMSTAC chairman may well have been referring to smallsat startup PlanetiQ, which announced it had signed a launch agreement with Antrix in December to launch two 10kg weather satellites in Q4 this year. It is not clear at this stage if COMSTAC’s recommendation will affect this launch.
India mulls privatisation of launch operations
COMSTAC’s recommendation was revealed just days after ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar told The Times of India that there are plans to largely denationalise its main launch operations.
Kumar told the newspaper that services provided by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle would be privatised through ISRO’s commercial arm, Antrix, and set a tentative date of 2020 for the split to happen.
Putting the launch operations into private hands would raise capital to boost capacity and enable 18 PSLV launches per year – 50% more than the current 12 mission limit – Kumar said, creating an entity similar to the United Launch Alliance joint venture in the US.
Taking the launch business out of state hands may also allay the fears of COMSTAC and others that worry Antrix’s pricing and business model is not “market-based”, as Gold suggested.
