India has firm orders to launch 12 foreign satellites

India has firm orders to launch 12 foreign satellites over the next few years, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation K Radhakrishnan said on Wednesday.

He said ISRO has so far launched 26 foreign satellites by the home-grown Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

"We have today about 12 satellites...a firm order is there and scheduled to be launched in the coming two years," he told reporters.

ISRO officials said these satellites were mainly Canadian, German and Indonesian, including a 800-kg spacecraft - environment monitoring satellite - from DLF Germany.

Others mainly fall in the 40-100 kg category though there are some micro-satellites also that India would launch.

Officials of the space agency would not talk about price-points for these launches, terming them to be "market-sensitive". But market sources say launching one kg of payload would cost around USD 20,000.

Asked if the controversial Antrix-Devas deal (Antrix is the marketing arm of ISRO) had an impact on ISRO in terms of "pull-back" on launches of foreign satellites from Indian soil, Radhakrishnan replied in negative.

"We do not think (that there is an impact). There is a very strong demand for launching a few of the world-class remote sensing satellites by (India''s) PSLV", he said.