ISRO's bid to get industry to produce its highly successful polar satellite launch vehicle reached a significant milestone on Friday when propellant ingredients for the solid motors were delivered to the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota for the inaugural flight of the industry-manufactured PSLV N1.
The Department of Space, through its commercial arm NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), had in September last year placed a Rs 860 crore order with a consortium of L&T and HAL to build five PSLVs towards productionisation of the third generation launch vehicle of India.
Productionisation in general refers to the process of turning a prototype of a design into a version that can be more easily mass-produced. The date of the inaugural flight of the PSLV N1 is yet to be finalised.