Transponder space set to double

Growing commercial and government demand for satellite transponders will see the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) increase the number of transponders in space from 130 at present, to 250 by 2007.

This apart, Isro today said India's planned un-manned moon mission was on track and would be launched in 2007-08. Six areas of research had been identified for the mission and Europe and the US had evinced interest in piggybacking on the Indian mission for research-related purposes.

The Isro is also lining up two more satellite launches, INSAT 4A and 4B, to meet the expected growth in demand from the newly-launched Direct To Home (DTH)services.

Disclosing this here today, G Madhavan Nair, chairman, ISRO, said that the new line of satellites will be launched by the middle of the next year and will together have a capacity of 36 transponders.

The ISRO is also planning to launch an education satellite, EDUSAT, on the 20th of this month, which will have a dozen transponders that would be used in the areas of education, telemedicine and agriculture, among others.

Apart from the DTH services, the new transponders to be added by next year would also be utilised for increasing the Internet bandwidth availability in the country.