ISRO had announced last week that the Shar centre would be "reconfigured" immediately after the launch of PSLV-C2 for GSLV launch.

So far, the Shar launch centre has been witnessing take-offs of PSLV-type rockets that can carry one-tonne satellites, besides smaller satellite launch vehicles (SLVs), augmented satellites launch vehicles (ASLVs) that can lift up to 100-kg spacecraft.

GSLV, which will carry an experimental 2.5-tonne G-SAT satellite, is scheduled to be launched during this financial year. It will have a Russian cryogenic engine.

ISRO's future PSLV programmes include launching of "Cartosat" - a remote sensing satellite exclusively for preparing maps of the earth's surface - by 2001.

Cartosat, the fifth of Indian remote sensing satellite series or IRS-P5,Will be equipped with special cameras that will provide high resolution data, an ISRO official said. Cartosat will have a ground resolution of 2.5 metres compared to 5.5 metres of existing Indian remote sensing satellites.Next in the pipeline for PSLV is IRS-P6 or Resourcesat for resource mapping, slated for 2002.

Resourcesat will essentially continue the present services of IRS-1D launched in 1997. Another ocean remote sensing satellite, Oceansat-2, that will be even more advanced than the one launched today, will be ready in the first half of the next decade, ISRO said.

The coming one year will be busy for ISRO which has on its agenda two more satellites -- Insat-3B for Kourou in French Guyana in September-October and G-SAT from Sriharikota.

Insat-3B has been advanced to precede Insat-3A to quickly augment the extended C-band capacity of the Insat system, which suffered a setback due to Insat-2D becoming inoperable four months after its launch in 1997.The two-tonne Insat-3B will provide fixedsatellite service (FSS) in extended C-band and Ku-bands, as well as mobile satellite service (MSS) in S-band.