Two startups sign pact to launch space taxis 

BENGALURU: Two space startups — Skyroot Aerospace and Bellatrix Aerospace  who had both won this year’s National Startup Awards — on Monday entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to use the Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV) being developed by Bellatrix in the upper stage of Vikram series of launch vehicles being developed by Skyroot.

This is among the first contracts between Indian space startups after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Union government promised support to private space companies through creation of IN-SPACE and announcement of new space law.

An OTV is a spacecraft that can perform various in-orbit operations, including deployment of customer payload to precise orbits, thus allowing a launch vehicle to deliver satellites to more orbits than what was conventionally possible. In simple terms, it is like a taxi in space to take satellites to their operational orbits. Skyroot and Bellatrix plan to have the first mission of a Vikram launcher with an Orbital Transfer Vehicle by 2023.