For the first time in the 20 years since its inception, the Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial wing of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), will have a chief who is not the ISRO Chairman.
V.S. Hegde, former Scientific Secretary, ISRO, will be the new Antrix Chairman and Managing Director, said ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan here on Saturday.
Following the media spotlight on the Antrix earlier this year over the preferential allocation of S-band spectrum to private firm Devas Multimedia, ISRO announced that it would restructure the company to allow greater transparency. One of the fundamental decisions was to change the tradition of the ISRO chief becoming the CMD of the Antrix head too.
Dr. Radhakrishnan told journalists that the Antrix would have a new board that would include experts from various fields, ISRO functionaries and private sector entities. Among the set of agendas before the new Antrix CMD is the setting up of a coordination management committee “to ensure the right kind of sharing and allocation of expertise.”
Globally, the space industry business turnover was $160 billion, while at the Antrix it was $200 million, Dr. Hegde said, adding that there was “tremendous opportunity for the Antrix to exploit.”
Antrix was established in 1992 to promote the commercial exploitation of space products, technical consultancy services and the transfer of technologies developed by ISRO. The company provides space products and services to international customers worldwide. Koteshwar Rao (former Director of Laboratory for Electro Optical Systems) will take over as ISRO Scientific Secretary.
