Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), a subsidiary of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) based in Thiruvananthapuram, has said that India will launch three satellites next month.
Moreover, two more satellites will be launched by the end of the year, a senior official said.
"We will be launching Spot-6, a French satellite and a small Japanese satellite on board PSLV-C21 (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket, next month," P.S.Veeraraghavan, Director, VSSC) said.
The third is a communication satellite - GSAT-10 - on-board Ariane rocket from Kourou in French Guiana.
Veeraraghavan said the French satellite is expected to be in India soon while the Japanese satellite is already at ISRO's launch centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, around 80 km from here.
ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix) has entered into a commercial Launch Services Agreement with Astrium SAS, a company under EADS, France, for launching SPOT-6, an advanced remote sensing satellite.
What is interesting is that the 800-kg SPOT-6 built by Astrium SAS will be the heaviest third party payload that ISRO will be carrying after the 350-kg Italian satellite Agile it put into orbit in 2007.
As the total luggage will be around 815 kg, ISRO will be using its Core Alone variant of PSLV (rocket without its six strap on motors).
The mission will take ISRO's total tally of ferrying foreign satellites to 29.
The Indian space agency in order to augment its communication transponder capacity-(automatic receivers and transmitters for communication and broadcast of signals) will be sending up GSAT-10.
The 3.4 tonne satellite will carry 12 Ku Band, 12 C Band and 12 Extended C Band transponders and GAGAN (global positioning satellite-GPS and GEO augmented navigation) payload.
