The Hindu Business Line : ISRO's 1-m imagery in market soon

Bangalore April 11 The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now working at far superior satellite imageries of half-metre resolution and beyond even as it is about to hit the global market with 1-metre Earth pictures.

ISRO is the world's third and only second non-US supplier of 1-m imageries and perhaps the most competitively priced; the data come at a premium of nearly 40 per cent. Some data is internationally priced at $18-20 per picture of a sq km.

Cartosat-2's high-resolution imageries are primarily for urban and infrastructure planning and will be offered at affordable prices to its users, the ISRO Chairman, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, said on Wednesday as he unveiled pictures of Bangalore and Hyderabad taken from over 600 km in the sky.

He said the next move would be towards 0.5-m or better imageries; radar imaging to look through clouds; improved ocean surface imageries through Oceansat-2; and a camera on its forthcoming geostationary Insat-3D.

However, the sub-metre project may not be before 2010. ISRO is still to develop technologies such as 1.2-m telescope, better material such as silicon carbide; and imaging detectors, which its Semiconductor Lab could work on, Mr Nair said.

The 1-m market is large and ISRO would aim at capturing 10-15 per cent of the 1-m market in a couple of years, said Mr K.R. Sridhara Murthi, Executive Director, Antrix Corporation, ISRO's commercial arm. With its competitive pricing, it also hopes to wean domestic users away from sourcing 1-m data of foreign commercial satellites such as Ikonos or Quick Bird. Some 200 data products are being imported and this is set to grow ten-fold, he said.

The national space agency is currently among the top three satellite imagery suppliers and holds nearly 25 per cent of the $ 120-million free-play market.

All IRS (Indian Remote-sensing Satellite) imageries are distributed through the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) in the home market and exports through Antrix.

According to ISRO officials, IRS products are the largest selling in this segment, offering over 10,000 products in various categories. The NRSA Director, Dr K.Radhakrishnan, said the 1-m offer would raise the number of products sold from 27,000 to over 40,000 a year.

ISRO reached the 1-m capability in October 2001 with the Technology Experiment Satellite (TES) but did not offer it in the market.