Antrix Corporation of Department of Space and Nanyang Technological University, (NTU), Singapore signed an agreement today, January 24, 2003, under which ISRO's PSLV will launch X-Sat of NTU. The agreement was signed by Prof Er Meng Hwa, Deputy President and Prof Tan Soon Hie, Director, Satellite Engineering Centre from NTU and Mr K R Sridhara Murthy, Executive Director, Antrix Corporation at a simple ceremony held at Antariksh Bhavan, Bangalore, the headquarters of ISRO and Antrix. Dr K Kasturirangan, Chairman, ISRO and Dr P S Goel, Director, ISRO Satellite Center also participated in the ceremony.

The 100 kg class X-Sat, which is being developed by NTU, Singapore, is a remote sensing micro-satellite for earth observation and imaging in visible spectral bands. The satellite will be used for land and coastal observations employing multi-spectral imaging. The three-axes stabilized spacecraft will have deployable solar panels.

X-Sat is the fifth satellite for which Antrix Corporation is providing launch service using ISRO's PSLV. The satellites launched earlier are PROBA of Belgium, BIRD and DLR-TUBSAT of Germany and KITSAT-3 of Korea. Under the agreement signed today, besides launching X-Sat on one of the forthcoming launches of PSLV during 2005/06, Antrix will also provide NTU with the necessary support for testing the satellite.