ISRO makes big plans with 35 % rise in budget allocation

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has chalked out ambitious plans for 2006-07, buoyed by a hefty 35 per cent rise in budgetary allocations. These include launching of a slew of satellites like Insat-4C, Insat-4B, SRE 1, Gsat-4, Cartosat-2 and Oceansat-2.

The budget estimates for fiscal 2006-07 for the Department of Space (DoS) have been pegged at Rs 3,610 crore, against the revised budget of Rs 2,675 crore in 2005-06. Out of this, the highest allocation of Rs 2,326.77 crore is for space technology, followed by Rs 408.43 for space applications and Rs 388.35 for space sciences.

Sources at ISRO said substantial progress had been made in developing Cartosat-2, the most advanced remote sensing satellite built by India so far. "The satellite which has the capacity to provide scene specific spot imageries with one metre spatial resolution is planned to be launched this year and will help India to retain its front ranking position in the area of remote sensing," they added.

Following the successful launch of Insat-4A, the heaviest and most successful satellite launched by India so far, in December 2005, ISRO is also planning to launch two more satellites of the same series, Insat-4C and Insat-4B.

"We are in an advanced stage of preparations for these two launches which will help in increasing the capacity of the Insat system to meet the growing demand of the television broadcasting services sector," the source pointed out.

Oceansat-2, a follow up of the Oceansat-1 for ocean related studies is slated to be launched in 2007 by the PSLV. The satellite will provide data relating to identification of fishing zones, sea state forecasting, costal zone studies, and weather forecasting and climatic studies.

The satellite will have a piggyback payload called Radio Occultation Sounder for Atomospheric studies (ROSA), developed by the Italian Space Agency.

During the year, ISRO is also planning to launch Gsat-4, which is envisaged as a technology demonstrator using the GSLV. The satellite will carry a scientific payload comprising three ultra-violet band telescopes developed by Tel Aviv University and Israel Space Agency ELOP.

Besides these, the other expenditure in the fiscal will be towards the GSLV Mk III programme, the Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat) which is slated for launch in 2007-08, Chandrayaan-1 and the continuous mission of PSLV and GSLV, which are part of the tenth five year plan of ISRO.