ProtoStar Ltd is a private part incorporated in Bermuda, with U.S. operations based in San Francisco, California and Asian operations based in Singapore. ProtoStar intended to operate an initial fleet of three geostationary satellites. Two satellites were acquired and launched. ProtoStar's anchor customer, Dish TV India Limited, is the largest direct-to-home television operator in India.

A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. The protostellar phase is the earliest one in the process of stellar evolution. For a one solar-mass star it lasts about 1,000,000 years. The phase begins when a molecular cloud first collapses under the force of self-gravity. It ends when the protostar blows back the infalling gas and is revealed as an optically visible pre-main-sequence star, which later contracts to become a main sequence star.