Thaindian News

Bangalore, July 21 (IANS) India’s latest remote sensing satellite Cartosat-2B has started beaming high quality images of the country’s landscape from the earth’s lower orbit, India’s space agency said Wednesday.
“The camera of Cartosat-2B has been switched on and images of high quality are being received,” the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.

The first two images vividly show Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh with the Sangam and Madurai city in Tamil Nadu.

The 694-kg remote sensing satellite has a panchromatic camera on board to take high resolution pictures of specific spots.

The panchromatic camera takes black-and-white pictures in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The imagery will have a spatial resolution of 0.8 metres. The camera covers a swath (geographical strip of land) that is 9.6-km wide.

“Data from the advanced remote sensing satellite will find applications in cartography at cadastral level, urban and rural infrastructure development and management, as well as land information system and geographical information system,” ISRO director S. Satish told IANS.

The observation satellite is positioned in a polar sun-synchronous orbit about 630 km above the earth.

“The satellite’s imagery can be used for preparation of detailed forest type maps, tree volume estimation, village/cadastral level crop inventory, town/village settlement mapping and planning for development, rural connectivity, canal alignment, coastal land form, mining monitoring and others,” Satish pointed out.

Cartosat-2B was launched July 12 by the indigenous polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C15) from the Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh, about 80 km northeast of Chennai.

Four other satellites, including the Algerian AlSat-2A, two auxiliary satellites from Canada and Switzerland and a pico-satellite Studsat, developed by students of seven engineering colleges from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, were also launched with Cartosat-2B into the polar orbit.