India inks deal to launch 23 foreign satellites

India has signed an agreement to launch 23 foreign satellites as per Antrix Cooperation which is the commercial arm of ISRO.

• From 23 satellites 2 will go in two separate rockets. The remaining 21 satellites will be loaded on bigger Indian satellite.
• ISRO will soon launch 6 Singapore satellites weighing a total of around 660 kg.

–        The bigger satellite is an earth observation satellite having weight of 410 kg.
–        Two are micro-satellites having weight of 130 kg and 80 kg respectively.
–        The rest three are nano-satellites which together weighing 30 kg.

• Antrix Corporation had signed pact with US parties to launch 9 small satellites, of which four were launched with ASTROSAT and rest will also launch by ISRO before 2016.
• SAARC satellite will be a two-tonne satellite with 12 transponders and it will be launched by the end of 2016.