One satellite launch likely every month, says Sunil Mittal after Indian rocket launches 36 OneWeb satellites

Mittal added that six launches are left, which could not be done earlier else could have been finished by June this year. “Now we will be finishing all our launches by March. Two of them from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) in Sriharikota, and the balance three to four will be from the US by SpaceX. These are all happening in sequence one every month,” he added.

Bharti Airtel boss noted that this has delayed services in India and he expects them to start by the middle of next year. “Services are already available in India but they are patchy, but to give it 24-by-7 services, we will need more satellites to go up. Today services are available in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, UK so hopefully, we will have our services fully available soon,” he said.

Speaking about allocation to the space industry, Mittal said, “Prime Minister has very clearly said satellite is going to be one of the important mix of providing telecom services, especially to areas where we can't reach by mobile networks or fibre networks. So how do you cover them? These are the places in the desert, Himalayas, in forests, in the deep sea and the applications are very critical for many government agencies.”

He added the government would make the right decision to provide spectrum for satellite communication, which will make a business case viable in India. “There are noise pressures but you cannot compare a satellite 15-acre ground station spectrum allocation like there’s an All India mobile spectrum. People are trying to confuse this discourse and I think we will be able to eliminate it as there are lots of experts within the government who will understand this point.”