Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Kasturirangan said the satellite to study tropical climates would be launched in 2005 in India.

"It will open new frontiers for climate and weather applications," the United News of India quoted the ISRO chief as saying at an Indo-French conference on remote-sensing in Bangalore, the hub of India's space industry.

Remote-sensing uses satellites to map oceans, forests and mineral deposits.

The satellite, to be built by ISRO and the National Centre for Space Studies of France, will carry state-of-the-art instruments developed by the two agencies, Kasturirangan said.

He said the satellite would help France and India corner a larger piece of the global remote-sensing market, which is estimated to reach 12 billion dollars by 2005 from six billion dollars at present.

The ISRO chief said India's annual satellite data sales of about 17,000 products generated 3.5 million dollars.

"The need for information will far outgrow the requirement for satellite images and for the next several years commercial ventures providing value-added services are likely to derive greater benefits," he said.

India also hopes to tap into the global commercial satellite launch market which focuses on 20 to 30 launches a year with total fees of about 2.5 billion dollars.

The ISRO in May for the first time successfully launched a commercial rocket which put into orbit a German, South Korean and locally-made satellite.

The maiden launch of a prototype rocket ended in disaster when it crashed after blast-off in September 1993.

The fourth and last test flight successfully placed an Indian-built remote-sensing satellite in space in September 1997.

Copyright 1999 AFP. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by AFP and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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