The Hindu Business Line : ISRO, Boeing in talks to make satellites for global markets

THIS could be an early sign of the US and India "giving each other space" as the US Ambassador put it. Boeing Satellite Systems and ISRO are in talks for manufacturing and marketing 2-tonne communications satellites for the global market.

The US Administration recently approved a licence allowing Boeing to negotiate the tie-up with ISRO, Mr Kenneth I. Juster, US Under Secretary of Commerce, revealed at the ongoing Indo-US space conference here today.

Boeing Satellite Systems, which was Hughes Space & Communications Company until Boeing acquired it in 2000, is a leading supplier of spacecraft for global civilian and US defence purposes. From the late 1980s, ISRO has been making all its satellites for communication and remote sensing and is hoping to turn exporter for regional users.

The proposal is to have Boeing transponders or payload and scientific instruments fitted into ISRO satellite frames and have them assembled at the ISRO facilities in Bangalore.

According to the ISRO Chairman, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, the dialogue has just begun. "All going well, we should be able to market the satellites in the next two years," he later told newspersons.

Two-tonne communications satellites could typically cost $50-60 million each in the international market. An ISRO official told Business Line that there is a reasonably good market potential for annually making two low-power (sub 3-kw power) satellites or a few more than that for higher powered ones of 4-4.5 kw.

ISRO is also getting into the launch market for the same class of satellites with its GSLV rockets, but the official said, "the launch of the joint satellites is not in the scope of our talks."

For the national agency, such a joint initiative will also mean skipping the dicey and time-consuming route to sourcing components from the US industry. The two sides would be working out a win-win deal, he said.

Without elaborating the Boeing proposal, Mr Juster said: "Our government recently approved a licence authorising Boeing Satellite Systems to engage in discussions and share data with ISRO on the division of responsibilities for possible joint cooperation in the development and marketing of communication satellites."

In the mid-1990s, ISRO was in talks with another US satellite major, Lockheed Martin, for a similar arrangement but the plan got busted after the Pokhran nuclear tests and the US sanctions that followed in 1998.

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