BENGALURU, India - Flush with the ongoing success of its Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking for international partners as a way to fast-forward some of its ambitious space plans.

"There will be challenging opportunities for industries in India and abroad to provide equipment and services," says ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair, addressing the recent Bengaluru (former Bangalore) Space Expo 2008 organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry in association with ISRO and its marketing arm, the Antrix Corporation. "These include many small and medium enterprises."

The latest Geosynchronous Space Launch Vehicle - the GSLV Mk III (LVM3) under development with a $500 million budget and a Russian cryogenic stage - is now moving to an indigenous cryogenic stage, with two variants set to be ready in 2009.

"The objective is to have a self-reliant cost-effective new launch vehicle capable of launching the 4-ton class of communication satellites in Geo-synchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and up to 10-ton satellites in low Earth orbit by 2010/2011," says N. Narayanamoorthy, the SLV3 project director at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSCC). The LVM3 development also includes improved operability, he says.

Reducing the cost of access to space is a prime goal. And some potential international partners may be willing to help. "We're not in India to sell any hardware," says Alan De Luna, Project Director, Space Flight Programs, United Space Alliance. "What we bring is our experience on how to totally scope your program."

In land remote sensing - long a focus of India's help-the-villages space policy - "international cooperation will be the cornerstone," Antrix Director C.V.S. Prakash says.

"Building, launching, operating and pursuing the program is very expensive," Prakash says. "It is a 'dammed if you do and dammed if you don't' situation once you have stepped in to such a program. You require investment for processing systems, software to use the remote sensing data of a satellite, which takes about three to four years to start yielding results. If the program is not continued after the normal life of a satellite, the ground investment comes to naught."

That conundrum may be a way for India to find common cause with other national space programs, much as NASA has joined the European Space Agency to stretch limited resources with a collaborative Mars exploration plan.

"For small countries, there is no other way than collaboration," says Zvi Kaplan, director-general of the Israel Space Agency (ISA).

The ISA is waiting for India to launch its Tel Aviv University Ultra-Violet Experiment (TAUVEX) instrument, started in the 1990s, on the GSAT-4 satellite next year. That mission also will test the ISRO-developed cryogenic engine for the GSLV upper stage.

But challenges remain as India's long-isolated space program struggles to join the international mainstream. A senior official told Aviation Week that while the Chandrayaan-1 mission had raised India's image, some countries are not ready to share technology.

ISRO plans six launches by the end of 2009, and also plans to launch a small probe named Aditya - "Sun" in Sanskrit - in 2012 to study the solar corona during the next solar-maximum period.

Chandrayaan-1 photo: Indian Space Research Organisation