Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation, has signed an agreement with US-based Space Imaging to market and sell data worldwide from ISRO's latest remote sensing satellite ResourceSat-1 and the next CartoSat-1 satellite.
"We expect to earn about $1.5 million to $2 million from the new arrangement," ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said on Wednesday.
An agreement to extend the sales and marketing and include the data from the two satellites was signed by Antrix Corporation CEO K R Sridhara Murthi and Space Imaging CEO Robert Dalal in Bangalore on Tuesday in the presence of Nair.
"ISRO, Antrix and Space Imaging have worked as partners to fulfil India's vision of a global commercial earth observation programme and the Indian remote sensing satellite system has emerged as one of the most high-profile programmes in commercial imaging industry," Nair said in a statement.
India has over 30 per cent share in the global remote sensing image data market and the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Agency acquires the remote sensing data from Indian satellites and markets the data in the country.
"Combined with ISRO's successful launch and Space Imaging's worldwide user base, we are certain to gain maximum exposure of RESOURCESAT-1 imagery across many global markets," Dalal said.
He said the firm had installed 19 ground stations to access IRS-1C and IRS-1D data in the last eight years.
The most advanced ResourceSat-1 satellite, with a 5.6 metre resolution camera that can see through the clouds, was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in October last.
The 2.5 metre resolution Cartography satellite, CARTOSAT-1 is expected to be launched by the indigenous PSLV later this year, ISRO said.
