Bangalore, May 22, 2006 (Televisionpoint.com)

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and European consortium EADS-Astrium plan to consolidate their accord by selling more communication satellites in international market. After signing the agreement in the presence of French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this February, the European Aeronautic Defence Space Company EADS-Astrium and ISRO-Antrix (its commercial arm) have already bagged two contracts till the middle of this month.

The first success of this alliance was demonstrated by the award of the W2M satellite contract by the Eutelsat Communications, while the second was awarded by the UKs new satellite operator Avanti Screenmedia Group for an innovative communication satellite called HYLAS (Highly Adaptable Satellite).

This ISRO-EADS alliance aims at jointly offering communications satellites in the market segment with a launch mass of two to three tonnes, Oliver Brun, Export Director of EADS-Astrium, said at the International Airshow. "This cooperation combining Indian platforms and European payloads is designed to offer optimal, flexible and cost effective solutions to the telecommunications operators," he said.

"Maintaining that EADS entered into an agreement with the ISRO as a mark of trust and confidence, we hope to sell more satellites with ISRO and we hope to announce more sales in the later part of this year." Brun said.

While refusing to elaborate who the new customers to the EADS-ISRO alliance would be, Brun merely said our major customers are Europeans and these could be from a variety of fields seeking broadband services to military satellites or even TV networks. He added that while EADS was providing the payloads, ISRO was undertaking the assembly, integration and tests at its new top class facilities in Bangalore.

Asked whether Indian companies have also shown interest in launching their own payloads, Brun said the decision has to come from Indian firms and some had shown considerable interest. He said there were several firms which could be interested in the EADS-ISRO alliance like BHEL, VSNL, Bharti Telcom, Reliance and Zee.

The EADS offical said the ISRO would have to go deep into these segments of the Indian market and convince these firms to buy Indian satellites. Under the first contract the EADS-ISRO alliance has bagged for W2M satellite from the Eutelsat, EADS Astrium would build the communications payload. The ISRO will build the satellite bus, integrate and test the spacecraft and will be in charge of early-in-orbit operations.