The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe), in collaboration with the ISRO, is offering a chance to the industry and the academia to launch a payload on the upcoming PSLV Orbital Experiment Module (POEM) missions tentatively scheduled during November 2023 and June 2024.
“The role of the space sector is very important in the overall development of the national economy, and there is a need to give special thrust to increase technology development under the domain of space science and technology. An essential part of such R and D is the demonstration of the technology and product in the space environment,” the announcement stated.
It added that a common methodology adopted is to integrate the payload into a satellite and provide the main bus to support the payload operations.
However, for various organisations looking to qualify their payloads in the space environment, the development of an entire satellite is resource intensive and may not be cost-effective,” it added.
The POEM uses the “spent PS4 stage” (fourth stage of PSLV) to carry out in-orbit scientific experiments. POEM has standard interfaces and packages for power generation, telemetry, telecommand, stabilisation, orbit keeping and orbit manoeuvring and hence can be used to design, develop and validate experimental payloads.
The capabilities of POEM have been demonstrated in two PSLV missions, the latest being PSLVC55.
