India strides to space with more satellite launches

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India plans to launch at least six satellites a year as it expands its capabilities to claim a bigger chunk of the global space business, the head of its space agency said on Tuesday.

India sent 10 satellites into orbit from a single rocket this week and is planning more launches before a manned mission to space by 2015.

"We are gearing up to at least half a dozen launches a year," G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in an interview.

"Only few countries have capabilities like us to access space all by themselves ... we would like to sort of maintain our leadership position in some areas, entering into space commerce is one of them," he said by telephone.

The space agency is now collaborating with a number of countries, including Israel, on a project to carry an ultra-violet telescope in an Indian satellite within a year.

It is also building a tropical weather satellite with France and collaborating with Japan on disaster management from space.

In January this year, ISRO launched an advanced Israeli reconnaissance satellite capable of taking images through cloud cover or at night, inviting criticism from India's leftist parties, saying it would harm relations with Iran.

Newspapers wrote editorial about India's growing ties with Israel, but the ISRO chairman said the arrangement with Israel was purely commercial.