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Antrix-Devas deal has no impact on ISRO

The controversial Antrix-Devas deal has not impacted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as the space agency’s commercial arm is still receiving enquiries from various countries for launching satellites and building satellites.

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The controversial Antrix-Devas deal has not impacted the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as the space agency’s commercial arm is still receiving enquiries from various countries for launching satellites and building satellites.

Speaking to reporters at the launch of a book All About Rockets on Wednesday, ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan said there were no ‘pullbacks’ by any country after the exposé of the Antrix-Devas muddle and that enquiries were pouring in from several countries for using the Indian launch facilities and also building satellites.

He said that ISRO has a backlog of 12 foreign satellites to be launched over the next few years which include the 800 kg German satellite environment monitoring satellite and some small and micro satellites in the 40 kg-100 kg category for Indonesia, Germany and Canada. He said that discussions were on with several countries for launching and building satellites.

He also said that separate names for chairman and managing director of Antrix Corporation had been recommended and the same had been forwarded to prime minister Manmohan Singh who will make the announcement in a couple of weeks.
After the appointment of the new chairman and managing director, the Antrix board would also be reconstituted, he said.

India’s latest and advanced communication satellite GSAT-8 would become operational by the end of June and that as of Wednesday the satellite on board the French Ariane 5 launch vehicle had reached its space home of 55 deg east longitude and would be co-located with Insat 3E.

He said that the satellite would be ready for commercial operations by the end of this month and that the allocation of transponder capacity would be finalised soon.

On the upcoming launches, he said that preparations were also on in a brisk pace for the launch of the PSLV-C17 by the middle of July from Sriharikota to place GSAT-12.

Radhakrishnan also said that the next Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) flight would be using an indigenous cyro engine for which the ground testing of the cryogenic stage would take place around March next year after which the dates for launch would be decided.

He said that the high-level committee headed by former Isro chairman K Kasturirangan had also suggested an experimental flight.

ISRO has suffered two back-to-back failures in the GSLV programme in the last one year.

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