India plans 12 satellites in 4 yrs, will invest Rs 3,000 cr

India is planning to launch 10-12 communication satellites in the next four years with an investment of over Rs 3,000 crore, chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) G Madhavan Nair said on Tuesday.

"We are planning at ISRO to orbit another 10-12 communications satellites into gso (geo-stationary orbit) in the next four years. These satellites will increase our on-orbit transponder capacity," he said inaugurating a satellite users' interference reduction group 2005 meeting/interference conference.

India's Insat system today consists of eight operational satellites and 144 total communication transponders in C, extended C, ku and S frequency bands. The 10 to 12 planned launches are expected to add an additional 100 to 120 transponders.

"We also have two of these satellites (out of total eight) carrying mateorological payloads, and one satellite being an exclusive meteorological satellite," he said.

Later, talking to reporters, Nair said: "Presently, we have 144 transponders. We need something like 256 transponders before this plan period (2007) itself. Each spacecraft will cost around Rs 300 crore."

According to him, there is a huge demand for transponders from dth (direct-to-home) and vsat sectors as well as for various applications.

There is also need to replace some of the old satellites, he added.