Commercialisation is not a priority for Indian Space Research Organisation and all its programmes are geared to cater to India's needs, ISRO chairman Dr K Kasturirangan told rediff.com reacting to a survey that INSAT system is not commercially viable.
"We are a government organisation, not a company," he said.
A survey conducted by the international weekly Space News said that ISRO does not figure either in the main list of top 20 satellite operators, or even in the supplementary list of five operators that are on the threshold of commercial success. The survey drew up the list on the basis of gross annual revenue earned by satellite operators around the world.
"In fact, any commercial offering of INSAT transponders is done only after ensuring that the country's socio-economic development needs are fully met," Dr Kasturirangan said.
"Naturally, we would not be within the world's top 25 space business agencies. You do not see NASA or ESA featuring on the Space News list either, do you? Our main concern is to fulfil our national needs, in the areas of telecom, communication, meteorology and so on," he added.
An official said ISRO had a much wider objective of providing remote services by establishing the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites in the world.
"ISRO cannot be equated with these satellite operators. It is wrong to compare us with these commercial ventures, which are only involved in fixed satellite services and not other space-related activities," he said.
With about 120 transponders and meteorology and disaster warning services through six satellites, the INSAT series are one of the largest satellite systems in the Asia-Pacific region.
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