India to launch 12 foreign satellites in 2 years

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Pakhi Hussain

02 June, 2011

Antrix, which is the commercial arm of ISRO, is entering into a million dollar project, whereby it would launch 12 satellites in the lower orbit. This is a venture that will get completed within two years.

INDIA IS about to launch 12 foreign satellites in two years time as per one top agency official. The million-dollar project, which was bagged by India, would be launching satellites in the lower orbits. The launch would be made from one of India’s spaceport as confirmed on Wednesday by a top agency official.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan also gave out some of the details of the venture. According to him their commercial arm, Antrix, has received orders from Canada, Indonesia, Germany and other European countries to launch satellites that would be in the “sun-synchronous orbit during the next two years”.

Out of the 12 satellites that would be launched by India, four have been ordered by Canada, two from Indonesia and Germany, one from Luxemburg and the remaining three from European Universities. Taking about the same an Antrix official also said, “We have an order from Germany to launch an 800-kg dedicated satellite (N-Map) for environmental studies. The other satellites, weighing between 80-100 kg will be launched on board our polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs) as additional payloads along with Indian communications or remote-sensing satellites."

This won’t be something new for India, as India has launched as many as 26 satellites for countries such as Germany, Italy, Israel, Korea and Singapore, Now after this deal is made, the Antrix is negotiating with France to launch an EnMAP, which is a remote sensing satellite in the lower orbit.