India will launch 25 foreign satellites belonging to seven countries, with the USA topping the list in 2016-17. In written response to a question, Jitendra Singh, minister of state in Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) which looks after the department of space, said till date 57 foreign satellites from 21 countries have been launched using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

He said Antrix – the commercial arm of ISRO – has signed agreements with Algeria and Canada for launching three satellites each, four for Germany, one each for Japan and Malaysia and 12 for the USA in 2016-17.

In the last three years, from January 2013 till December 2015, ISRO launched 28 foreign satellites belonging to 13 countries, with Singapore, the United Kingdom and the USA topping the list. ISRO earned 80 million euros for the launch.

Did You Know?

• ISRO was formed on Independence day, 1969 by Dr.Vikram Sarabhai.
• SLV-3 was India’s first indigenous satellite launch vehicle and A.P.J. Abdum Kalam Ji was the director of the project.
• ISRO’s expenditure in the last 40 years = Half of NASA’s single year budget.
• ISRO also developed Bhuvan, a web-based 3D satellite imagery tool which is the Indian incarnation of Google Earth.
• ISRO’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan I was approximately amounted to 390 crore rupees which is 8-9 times lesser than the expense of similar mission by NASA.