Interaction between ISRO and foreign-based organisations

New Delhi, Aug 10 (UNI) Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has built a number of satellites for weather, earth imaging, telecommunication and broadcasting which are extensively used by national agency and a part of the capacity relating to telecommunication and broadcasting is being leased to Indian corporate houses on commercial basis, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.

In a written reply in the Upper House, Minister of the State in the Prime Minister's Office Prithiviraj Chavan said that ISRO, through its commercial arm ANTRIX Corporation, has bagged commercial contracts to build two communication satellites for European customers.

European and US aerospace industries have expertise to build commercial satellites. Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of ISRO, has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with EADS Astrium - a leading global satellite manufacturer based in Europe - to jointly manufacture and market communication satellites for the global market, he added.

Mr Chavan also informed the house that there is no proposal for sending a man on the moon in 2008. However, it is planned to launch an instrumented spacecraft - Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 to orbit around the Moon.

The approved cost of this mission is Rs 386 crore, he said and added that the objectives of this indigenous mission include high resolution imaging of lunar terrain and mapping of various chemicals and mineralogical constituents over its surface.

The Minister informed that 70 per cent of ISRO budget is spent on R&D. ISRO augments its R&D spending through annual plans based upon its programmatic targets.

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