Innospace, a private space launch vehicle company, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Indian satellite firm Grahaa SPACE for multi-launch service cooperation.
Innospace said Monday that the signing ceremony took place on Saturday at the "Korea-India Space Day" event in Bengaluru, India, jointly hosted by the Korea AeroSpace Administration and India's IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center).
The agreement follows the first commercial launch of HANBIT-Nano in December last year. Grahaa SPACE was the customer whose satellite was onboard at the time, and the initial collaboration has now expanded into multi-launch service cooperation. Although the first SPACEWARD mission ended in failure, Grahaa SPACE highly regarded Innospace's technical capabilities and customer responsiveness demonstrated during the preparation process, and decided to jointly pursue future multi-launch opportunities, according to the company.
"This MOU carries significant meaning in that it goes beyond single launch missions to establish a customer-tailored, multi-launch-based operational system that can flexibly respond to customers' launch demands, orbits, and schedules," Innospace said. By securing multiple launch opportunities, the company aims to minimize the impact of schedule delays and technical variables on commercialization, while enhancing the stability and predictability of mission execution.
Through this agreement, the two companies plan to establish a systematic operational process based on repeated launches and jointly expand their competitiveness in the global small satellite market.
Headquartered in Bengaluru, Grahaa SPACE is a space technology startup developing advanced nano-satellite constellations for Earth observation, aimed at commercializing geospatial image data applicable to various ground-based applications. The company independently develops and provides a stackable nano-satellite platform that can be flexibly designed to fit diverse customer missions.
"This multi-launch service cooperation MOU was signed based on trust and a mid-to-long-term vision," Grahaa SPACE CEO Ramesh Kumar V said. "We expect it to serve as an opportunity for both companies to jointly advance the nano-satellite business roadmap based on our shared values of reliability, transparency, and continuous improvement."
"This agreement is significant in that it expanded the scope of cooperation after our technical capabilities and service quality were recognized by a customer who participated in the initial launch," Innospace CEO Kim Soo-jong said. "The multi-launch service model can simultaneously offer customers scheduling flexibility and cost efficiency, positioning it as a differentiated service in the future small satellite market. We will continue to strengthen our customer mission-oriented, differentiated launch service capabilities to further enhance our competitiveness in the global market."
