Bangalore, July 9 (IANS) Antrix Corporation, the Indian space agency's commercial arm, Saturday got a new head, V.S. Hegde, an expert in remote sensing applications as part of the plan to aggressively tap business opportunities in space exploration.
Hegde is currently scientific secretary at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Hegde's appointment "will ensure right kind of sharing of resources, allocation of resources, experts and priorities for Antrix", ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan told reporters here.
Hegde will be the first-full time chairman and managing director of Antrix. Till now, ISRO chairman also served as Antrix chief.
ISRO and Antrix had received flak earlier this year over a pact with private firm Devas Multimedia on allocation of scarce S-band airwaves.
The deal was scrapped in February. ISRO had said it had yet to launch the satellite from which the S-band was to be allocated and hence there was no loss to it or the country from the deal.
Antrix was set up in 1992 for commercial exploitation of ISRO's expertise in space science.