ISRO's 'eye in the sky': Cartosat-series satellite to be launched by month-end

ISRO gears up for its next CARTOSAT launch by month-end. Images clicked by the CARTOSAT satellites are the best in the world because of its swath coverage area. The images are better than those sent by the American Ikonos, which has reduced the latter's demand in the space market.

After the GSLV-Mk III launch last, ISRO is gearing up for another major launch at the end of this month. The fourth in the Cartosat-series satellite. also known as the 'eye in the sky' is creating much excitement for the launch scheduled at the end of the month. Known for its excellent surveillance capabilities, the satellite will be launched into the 505-km polar synchronous orbit. The 550-kg satellite, which is the fourth of the Cartosat-2 series is likely to be launched by the PSLV-C38 rocket. 

Satellite capabilities

It is an advanced remote sensing satellite, which is capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery. It is host to the state-of-the-art panchromatic camera that clicks black and white pictures of the earth in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The swath covered by this high-resolution camera is 9.6 kilometers and the spatial resolution is less than 1 meter. The satellite can be steered up to 45 degrees along as well as across the track and it can cover the entire globe in 1867 orbits or in 126 days.

Uses of the Cartosat-2C

The satellite will improve the military surveillance capabilities of India. The first major use of the Cartosat-2C satellite was when the Army commandos counted on satellite images to hot terror launch pads across LoC during the surgical strike in September. Some of the other applications of the satellite include cartographic applications,  coastal land use and regulation, urban and rural applications, water distribution, creation of land use maps, utility management like road network monitoring, precision study, change detection to bring out geographical and man made features and various other land information system (LIS) and geographical information system (GIS) applications.

An inside source, speaking to the Times of India said, "Demand of Cartosat images has increased in recent years as most departments of the Union government are relying on satellite images to get accurate data about a geographical area to implement their development projects. Satellite images not only save manpower, but also help get accurate geographical data about a place."

Why is it the best?

Cartosat-2C is considered world class in remote sensing satellite because it can not only click pictures of areas of interest, but also record videos of sensitive targets from space and relay it back to earth in a compressed format. The satellite can produce images of upto 100 cm in resolution, compared to the 80 cm resolution offered by Ikonos, operated by America's DigitalGlobe, which is multispectral.

Previously, India used to buy images from Ikonos at a very high price of $20 per sq km of imagery. But, now with Cartosat providing better imagery, buying images from Ikonos has reduced. The Cartosat has a panchromatic camera, which covers 50% of the payload area, which is made at Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre. 

The Twitter picture will show the difference in the image clicked by CARTOSAT and Google Maps.