INDIAN REMOTE SENSING SATELLITES

During the 1970’s and 80’s, India’s remote sensing data needs were being addressed by foreign satellites like LANDSAT, NOAA, SPOT etc., where NRSA just procured the satellite data products from foreign agencies and supplied it to the users.. With the setting up of an Earth Station at Hyderabad in 1979, satellite data reception started, first from USA’s LANDSAT satellite.

The launch of India’s first civilian remote sensing satellite IRS-1A in March 1988, marked the beginning of a successful journey in the course of the Indian Space Programme. The two LISS sensors aboard IRS-1A beamed down valuable data that aided in large scale mapping applications.

Subsequently, IRS-1B, having similar sensors, was launched in August 1991, and together, they provided better repetivity. The LISS-III, PAN and WiFS sensors on IRS-1C (December 1995) and IRS-1D (September 1997) further strengthened the scope of remote sensing, with increased coverage and foray into application areas like resources survey and management, urban planning, forest studies, disaster monitoring and environmental studies.

To test the launch vehicle programme, IRS-P3 and IRS-P4 satellites were launched. IRS-P3 carried an X-ray astronomy payload for space science studies, besides a WiFS and MOS sensors. IRS-P4, a satellite dedicated for ocean applications was launched in May 1999. Its OCM and MSMR sensors have opened new vistas in ocean studies.

The launch of IRS-P6 (Resourcesat-1) in October 2003, provided an excellent opportunity to obtain high resolution multi-spectral data and moderate resolution data in 10-bi, while providing continuity of data.

IRS-P5 (Cartosat-1), launched on May 5, 2005, catapulted the Indian Remote Sensing program into the world of large scale mapping and terrain modeling applications. Subsequently in Jan 2008 CARTOSAT-2 was launched , which led Indian Remote Sensing to the class of high resolution satellites. It has a PAN camera with 0.8 m resolution. Oceansat-2 was launched on September 23, 2009.

Continuing the journey, the Indian Space Research Organization is planning to offer much more to the user community through its future IRS missions. RISAT-1 is the next new missions which is scheduled to be launched during 2009-2010.

Today, IRS data is being used for a diverse range of applications such as crop acreage and production estimation of major crops, drought monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition, flood risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment, hydro-geo-morphological maps for locating underground water resources, irrigation command area status monitoring, snowmelt run-off estimation, land use and land cover mapping, urban planning, biodiversity characterization, forest survey, wetland mapping, environmental impact analysis, mineral prospecting, coastal studies, integrated surveys for developing sustainable action plans and so on.

India is playing a lead role in the world and would like to extend this role in providing access to the remote sensing data from an Indian satellite to students / scientists in the developing countries. Keeping this in view, ISRO has launched the Indian Mini Satellite – 1 (IMS-1) on April 28, 2008 as an auxiliary satellite on PSLV-C11. The satellite carries two payloads namely, Multi-spectral camera (Mx) and Hyper-Spectral Imager (HySI). IMS-1 is a mini satellite weighing 83 kg and has a mission life of two years.

Apart from supplying the data for the Indian Remote Sensing Satellites,we also supplement the data requirements of users through other Remote Sensing Satellites