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ISRO will earn $ 100 million leasing transponders

A Special Correspondent in Bangalore

The Indian Space Research Organisation plans to get into serious money making business when its biggest communication satellite, the INSAT 2E, is launched between April 2 and 7, from Kourou, French Guyana.

Eleven of the 17 transponders on the Insat 2E satellite, a link between the second and third generation satellites, are being leased out to the international consortium, Intelsat, covering the Asia-Pacific.

"We will earn about $ 100 million over a period of 10 years by leasing out these transponders. This is the first time we will earn money from a communication satellite,'' said a senior ISRO official.

ISRO already earns some money from Indian Remote Sensing satellites by supplying value-added images to the American company, Eosat. Soon after the launch of INSAT 2E, ISRO will for the first time get into commercial launch of 100 to 150 kg satellites from Sriharikota on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. It has already signed up with Koreasat, Tubsat and a Belgium company.

"The current rate is $ 1 million for each launch of these range of satellites,'' Dr K Kasturi Rangan, the ISRO chairman, told reporters on Friday. ISRO has already tied up with Arianne to decide on which of the satellites, in the 100 kg to 150 kg range, can be launched from Kourou and Sriharikota.

INSAT 2E is a replacement for INSAT 2D which was abandoned on October 3, 1997, due to depletion of power. "We have taken all the precautions based on the recommendations of the national review committee which went into the failure of the INSAT 2D satellite,'' Dr Kasturi Rangan said.

The cuboid structured INSAT 2E will be airlifted to Kourou from Bangalore in the early hours of Saturday. The state-of-the-art satellite, which weighs 2,550 kg at lift off with 327 kg of payload mass, will provide the largest communication coverage ever realised in the INSAT system. More importantly, INSAT 2E will mark the beginning of a new era of long life mission satellites. It is planned to provide a mission life of 12 years.

The satellite is designed to continue and enhance meteorological services of INSAT 1D, also carries communication payload with 17 C-band transponders. Ten of these channels includes India, China, the Middle-East, and major parts of South East Asia.

The remaining channels operate through a shaped wide beam, whose coverage extends from Central Europe to Australia and includes China and southern parts of the erstwhile USSR.

"The uplink to the spacecraft can be made from any point covered by the wide beam. These transponders can provide 12,000 two way voice links or broadcast about 100 digitally compressed television channels or a suitable mix of both, '' Dr Kasturi Rangan said.

Replying to a question, he said ISRO was accelerating efforts at building the third generation of INSAT satellites, the INSAT 3 series. "We need roughly 120 to 130 transponders which we propose to achieve by 2002. Currently 67 transponders are available,'' he said.

INSAT 2E would cost Rs 2 billion. If a satellite was hired, India would have spent approximately three times that amount. The launch from Kourou will cost $ 69 million.

Even the insurance cover this time has a longer life. INSAT 2E has been insured for $ 12 million covering the launch plus three years. ISRO received $ 54 million as insurance for the INSAT 2D failure.

Asked about the impact of US sanctions against ISRO, Dr Kasturi Rangan said: `` "Sanctions have become a part of our life. We have got accustomed to it. Once we get accustomed to it, systems come into place.''

ISRO's requirements come from several sources."We have an indigenised programme for back up. Components and materials which are not available in our country, we get from multiple sources,'' Dr Kasturi Rangan said.

ISRO has faced sanctions for the last six years when the US objected to its import of Russian cryogenic engines. "We have accomplished quite a lot in the hi-tech area because of the sanctions. The rest of the material, on which we need not waste too much time and money, comes from other sources,'' said a senior ISRO official.

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