Monday, May 20th 09:13 AM IST

Risat-1 will help India monitor borders

Apr 25, 2012

New Delhi: India proposes to launch Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) with cloud penetrating capability for imaging various parts of the country, including border areas, the Lok Sabha was informed Wednesday.

Replying to a question, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office V. Narayanasamy said that Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is also planning to launch a geo-imaging satellite (Gisat) to provide near real time pictures of large areas of the country.

“The Risat will provide the pictures of the areas of interest on near real time basis. That is, selected sector-wise imaging every five minutes and entire Indian landmass every 30 minutes at 50 metre spatial resolution,” he said.

With 5.47 a.m. Thursday set for the blast-off of Risat-1 into space, the Indian space agency is fuelling the rocket’s second stage with liquid propellant.

India proposes to launch Radar Imaging Satellite (Risat-1) with cloud penetrating capability for imaging various parts of the country, including border areas. Reuters

“The major activity today (Wednesday) is the filling up of the liquid fuel in the rocket’s second stage. The countdown is progressing well and every system in the rocket is normal,” a source in the ISRO told IANS in Chennai.

The indigenous Risat-1 with a life span of five years would be used for disaster prediction and agriculture forestry, and the high resolution pictures and microwave imaging could also be used for defence purposes.

The rocket is ready to escape the Earth’s gravity to put India’s heaviest microwave satellite, Risat-1, weighing 1,858 kg at an altitude of 480 km at an inclination of 97.552 degree, ISRO sources said.

IANS

Also see

Firstpost encourages open discussion and debate, but please adhere to the rules below, before posting. Comments that are found to be in violation of any one or more of the guidelines will be automatically deleted:

Personal attacks/name calling will not be tolerated. This applies to comments directed at the author, other commenters and other politicians/public figures

Please do not post comments that target a specific community, caste, nationality or religion.

While you do not have to use your real name, any commenters using any Firstpost writer's name will be deleted, and the commenter banned from participating in any future discussions.

Comments will be moderated for abusive and offensive language.

Please read our comments and moderation policy before posting