Indian Space Capabilities

[LCA]

The Hindu : Front Page : Launch of RISAT rescheduled

Launch of RISAT rescheduled

T.S. Subramanian

CHENNAI: The launch of Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT) by the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C12) from Sriharikota has been rescheduled to take place in the third or fourth week of April. The PSLV C-12 was to originally put it in orbit in the first week of April.

The launch has been postponed because of the under-estimation of the time-schedule to build the rocket, informed sources in the ISRO said. The RISAT, from Israel, is a remote-sensing satellite that can take pictures of the earth, day and night.

The PSLV C-12 will also put in orbit Anusat from Anna University, Chennai. Anusat, weighing about 38 kg, will be used for amateur communication. It is the first satellite to be built by a university in India.

 

[LCA]

The Hindu Business Line : Coming soon: ISRO’s ‘see-all’ radar imaging satellite

Coming soon: ISRO’s ‘see-all’ radar imaging satellite

EYE IN THE SKY.

RISAT-2 will be fully indigenous and development work is in progress

Madhumathi D.S.

Bangalore, April 5 At a time when the country grapples with terror threats and security concerns have peaked, a radar imaging satellite that is due to be put in orbit later in April is expected to give extra teeth to the nation’s eyes and ears in the sky — ISRO’s constellation of earth observation satellites.

ISRO also plans to send up a second one, Radar Imaging Satellite-2, towards the end of this year to complement the upcoming RISAT-1.

At a time when the Ministry for Home Affairs has put even the space agency’s scientists on terror alert, the project is sensitive to a normally open ISRO, which is playing down the project and its Israeli input. “RISAT-1 (Radar Imaging Satellite) is an all-weather satellite, capable of seeing through rain and cloud; and at night too,” is all its officials would say. It will orbit pole to pole from a height of around 600 km.

The brain of the 1,780-kg RISAT-1 is a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) based on active phased array technology. ISRO has procured the SAR for RISAT-1 from Israel. “Except for the SAR that we procured, it is our satellite,” an official unwilling to be named said, meaning to distinguish it from the TecSAR/Polaris surveillance satellite that the space agency launched for Israel in January 2008.

“Corresponding developments on the ground data processing systems with large computational requirements is yet another requirement,” ISRO’s Web site says.
RISAT-2

However, RISAT-2 will be fully indigenous and development work is in progress at the Space Applications Centre, the official said. The US, Europe, Canada and Israel are among the few countries that have the SAR capability. The recent lunar mission — Chandrayaan-1 — uses NASA’s mini-SAR as a guest instrument.

Who will be the primary user of RISAT? How useful will it be to secure vital scientific and commercial establishments that face risk? Will data from RISAT be commercially available, just as data from IRS are? Answers to these will have to wait for now.

A SAR system ‘sees’ opaque objects that take cover under darkness, foliage, haze or clouds. These features, ISRO officials admit, are warranted by India’s risk-ridden location; they were lacking in the IRS remote sensing satellites that have been launched in the last two decades. “Ninety five per cent of our data requirement can be met by (the regular) optical imaging satellites. When we needed radar images, we have obtained them from other satellites like Canada’s Radarsat,” one official said.

A RISAT brings other advantages, such as timely information during floods, natural calamities and quicker assessment of damage and deployment of relief to those areas. A radar imaging spacecraft is estimated to cost much more than the Rs 150 crore that a regular IRS costs.
Features

About RISAT, the ISRO Web site says the radar provides target parameters such as roughness and geometry and has the unique capability for day-night imaging, in fog, haze or any weather conditions. It can glean soil moisture data and give spatial resolutions of 3 metres to 50 metres and a sweep of 10-240 km.

According to information available online, regular earth observation satellites sense reflected sunlight; a SAR transmits microwave energy towards the surface and records the reflections. It can also offer fairly clear terrain features, identify selected man-made targets and movements and can be handy for 24x7 military requirements.

Some SAR systems are built to ‘see’ select underground utility lines, arms caches, bunkers, mines, oil slicks and moving vehicles, says the Web site of US SAR leader Sandia National Laboratories.

 

[LCA]

Latest Images from Chandrayaan-1



ISRO and NASA have recently released some of the latest images taken by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft orbiting the Moon. Above, Chandrayaan-1 looks back at Earth, and fittingly, India is at the center of the image. And here’s a link to another similar image, taken about an hour earlier. Below, are images taken by the Mini-SAR, the imaging radar instrument that NASA has tagging along on the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter. “The new radar images are not only visually arresting, but they will be extremely useful in unraveling the complex geological history of the Moon as a whole,” said Dr. Paul Spudis, principal investigator for Mini-SAR. “We are hard at work finishing the calibration of our instrument, which is required in order to make definite statements about the nature of the radar backscatter signature, the tell-tale sign of the presence or absence of water ice.”

As you can see, the Mini-SAR gathers data in strips as it orbits the Moon, which are later assembled to create larger images. This composite shows Rozhdestvensky K, a moderately sized (42-kilometer [26-mile] diameter) impact crater on the southern rim of the larger crater Rozhdestvensky, near the moon’s north pole. These Mini-SAR images show massive slumping, as result of wall collapse caused by gravity. NASA says these images demonstrate that Mini-SAR images will be of great value in deciphering the geological evolution of the moon.

Here’s a very young, fresh impact crater (3 kilometers [nearly 2 miles] in diameter) on the western limb of the moon near the crater Sylvester, taken by the Mini-SAR instrument aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter. Fresh features on the moon display “radar bright” (i.e., high backscatter) material around them. This is caused by the presence of very fresh ejecta, which includes many angular blocks and rough material. These deposits are the cause of high radar backscatter.

Coverage maps of the Mini-SAR experiment aboard India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter as of mid-March 2009. Mini-SAR has mapped about 80% of both of the moon’s poles. The polar excluded zone is a consequence of the side-looking nature of the instrument; these zones will be filled by both scatterometry (in which the instrument views the moon straight downward at low resolution) and high-angle SAR, in which operators roll the spacecraft 9 to 12 degrees to look at areas closer to the ground track.

 

[Screaming Skull]

India-to-launch-spy-satellite-on-April-20

BANGALORE: India will launch a spy satellite from Sriharikota spaceport on April 20 primarily to keep an eye on its borders round-the-clock and help
the government in anti-infiltration and anti-terrorist operations.

The 300-kg radar-imaging satellite has been built by Israel and is set to blast-off on board India's home-grown rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

This remote-sensing advanced imaging satellite, to be positioned 550 km above the earth, has all-weather capabilities.

It carries Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload, which can take images during day, night and all weather conditions including under cloud cover, a capability that Indian satellites do not have.

Given the sensitiveness of the venture, the Indian Space Research Organisation is tight-lipped over the mission, not giving out many details.

A senior ISRO official, who spoke to PTI on condition of anonymity, said that the significance of the satellite is its all-weather capability.

"It will be primarily used for defence and surveillance. The satellite also has good application in the area of disaster management and in managing cyclones, floods and agriculture-related activities," he said.

Bangalore-headquartered ISRO launched Tecsar surveillance satellite of Israel Aerospace Industries from Sriharikota in January last year.

"When we launched the Israeli (Tecsar) satellite, we found that it's a good satellite. Then we asked them to build one for us. It can penetrate through the clouds and take pictures even at night," the official said.

Anusat, built by Chennai-based Anna University, would be the co-passenger on board PSLV-C12, which is expected to take off between 6 am and 6.30 am on April 20, officials tracking the preparations said.

India to launch spy satellite on April 20 - India - The Times of India

 

[zombie:-)]

finally the third eye is coming ..that sees all cool ....this is different from the satellite dedicated to IAF right

 

[Screaming Skull]

First Image of RISAT-2 to be launched on April-20 2009.​

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Design verification model of Synthetic Aperture Radar for RISAT-1 undergoing near-field test​

​

 

[Screaming Skull]

finally the third eye is coming ..that sees all cool ....this is different from the satellite dedicated to IAF right

Yes this is different from the one dedicated to IAF. The one dedicated to IAF will be launched by IAF itself. I mean the ACM or someone will press the button in the presence of a whole lot of IAF personnel.

 

[Screaming Skull]

The Indian RISAT-2 looks mighty similar to Israel's TecSAR. There are rumors that the Indian RISAT-2 is an off the shelf Israeli TecSAR. Though ISRO is tight lipped about the specs of RISAT-2, if the rumors are true then RISAT-2 is going to be one hell of a killer of a spy sat.
---(Purely my opinions. I may be wrong though!)

Here are the specs of the Israeli TecSAR.

TecSAR

The Mini class, low earth orbit TecSAR, is offered as an off-the-shelf product by Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and ranks among the world's most advanced space systems.

Its Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) uses a large dish-like antenna to transmit and receive radar signals that can penetrate darkness and thick clouds providing images with 1m resolution.

The Multi mode SAR is capable of high resolution imaging of Spot (1m), Strip (3m), Mosaic(1.8m) and Wide coverage (8m).

The highly agile bus design in combination with the body-pointing parabolic antenna dish system permits greatly increased viewing capabilities from the spacecraft. The spacecraft/antenna system may be dynamically redirected into any direction of the flight path (i.e. in the cross-track as well as in the along-track direction). Thus, a wide FOR (Field of Regard) within the incidence-angle range may be obtained on either side of the ground track for event monitoring coverage.

Strip mode: the synthetic apertures are targeted on wide geographical swaths. The spacecraft performs synchronous imaging and does not change its orientation during observations except for some small maneuver due to the need to keep the imaging strip parallel to the ground track. Squinted strip imaging is possible.

Wide coverage ScanSAR: The coverage of large strips is achieved by electronic beam steering. Three beams are used in the nominal wide coverage mode which create three footprints (subswaths) in the target area. The ground resolution in this mode is decreasing since the integration time is split up among the subswaths. The swath width can be increased by using more antenna beams. In principle the swath width may get to more than 100 km for some incidence angles. However, this reduces the ground resolution to about 20 m.

Spotlight mode: This focuses on a specific, pre-assigned target. In spotlight, the spacecraft performs mechanical steering to halt the antenna footprint in a specific target area. The longer integration time over the spot target area yields an improved azimuth resolution. The range resolution is achieved in adjusting the bandwidth to the incidence angle. The TecSAR ability for spotlight imaging in squint allows for multi-look imaging without any loss in resolution. To obtain a multi-look image of a given target area, a number of spotlight images are being observed, each at a different squint angle.

Mosaic mode: The radar imager slews its focus on a number of spots in the same general target area. The mosaic mode enables to extend the limited coverage of the spot mode by using the electronic steering capability of XSAR. In mosaic mode the radar beam scans in the range direction while the mechanical maneuvering advances the strip line in the azimuth direction. Hence, this mode may also be interpreted as the spot version of ScanSAR.



Artist's rendition of the TecSAR spacecraft in Earth orbit. Photo Credit: IAI



Illustration of the TecSAR spacecraft. Photo Credit: IAI Systems Ltd.



Multi modes of SAR. Photo Credit: ELTA Systems Ltd.



Illustration of the wide coverage mode. Photo Credit: ELTA Systems Ltd.



Illustration of the mechanical and electrical beam steering in the mosaic mode. Photo Credit: ELTA Systems Ltd.

 

[Screaming Skull]

Isro to launch high-end satellite on Monday​

17 Apr 2009,

CHENNAI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will on Monday put in orbit its first radar imaging satellite (Risat), which can watch'
the earth under all-weather conditions, day and night.

Isro's workhorse PSLV (C-12) will take off at 6.45am from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, an island by the sea 100km north of Chennai. About 17 minutes later, the 300-kg Risat will be put in an orbit 550km from the earth. Riding piggyback on Risat will be a microsatellite called Anusat, developed by Anna University, Chennai.

"The countdown will start 48 hours before take-off (Saturday morning). As of now, everything is going on fine. Risat, which can penetrate clouds and observe earth under all climatic conditions, will be extremely useful in disaster management," Isro spokesperson S Satish told TOI. Unlike Isro's previous remote sensing satellites that used optical imaging, Risat uses synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that has several antennas to receive signals that will be processed into high-resolution pictures.

While its applications in mapping and managing natural disasters such as floods and landslides are spoken about, Risat will come in handy for defence applications as well. Isro had started work on a 1,780-kg Risat, but shelved its launch to advance the launch of the present 300-kg variant. Defence sources confide that the lighter Risat version was assembled on a war footing in the wake of terrorist attacks. "Risat has been put together with inputs from the Israeli Space Agency (ISA), but the satellite images will be used solely for Indian purposes," Satish said.

Also in the PSLV-C12 payload will be Anusat, the first satellite to be assembled by an Indian university. "Scores of students and faculty members from different streams have been working on Anusat for six years," said Anusat project director P V Ramakrishna. Anusat will be a store-and-forward communication satellite that will enable transfer of confidential academic material like exam question papers, to get rid of leakages (Brilliant).

PSLV-C11 had, on October 22, 2008, carried the lunar probe as part of Chandrayaan-I. Ever since it launched the first satellite Aryabhatta on April 1, 1975, Isro has launched more than a dozen satellites, including the INSAT (Indian National Satellites) series for communication, broadcasting and meteorology and IRS (Indian Remote Sensing Satellites) for resources monitoring and management.

 

[indiatech]

PSLV C-12 , RISAT, ANUSAT pics from ISRO

Nozzle end segment of first stage being moved to VAB


Interstage 1-2 being unload-stacked 1st stage at background


Fully Stacked PSLV-C12 ready to move from VAB


PSLV exiting from Vehicle Assembly Building


On its way to Launchpad


PSLV - C12 On Launchpad


4th stage after stacking


ANUSAT

 

[indiatech]

RISAT & PSLV-C12 Brouchure

http://www.isro.org/pslv-c12/C12RISATBrochure-2.pdf

 

[indiatech]

ISRO launches spy satellite RISAT-2-News-Videos-The Times of India


Spy satellite RISAT takes off from Sriharikota
20 Apr 2009, 0740 hrs IST, PTI


SRIHARIKOTA, AP: Aiming to bolster India's defence surveillance capabilities, ISRO on Monday successfully launched its first all-weather spy
satellite that will help security agencies keep a watch on the movements on the borders, from its spaceport here. ( Watch )

The PSLV-C12, carrying 300-kg Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-2) and 40-kg micro educational satellite ANUSAT lifted off from ISRO's Satish Dhawan space Centre here at 6:45am and placed into 550 km orbit around earth.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, weighing 230 tonnes at the time of launch, soared into a clear sky from the spaceport here, about 90 km north of Chennai.

At the end of the 48-hour countdown, the 44-meter tall four-stage PSLV-C12 blasted off from the second launch pad with the ignition of the core first stage.

RISAT has all-weather capability to take images of the Earth and would also be beneficial in mapping and managing natural disasters, such as floods and landslides, besides amplifying defence surveillance capabilities of the nation. It would also help keep track of ships at seat that could pose a threat.

As per specifications, RISAT is different from previous remote sensing satellites as it uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), equipped with many antennas to receive signals that are processed into high-resolution pictures.

The SAR, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, gives RISAT defence capabilities.

ANUSAT is the first satellite developed by an Indian university (Anna University), which would demonstrate the technologies related to message storing and forward operations.

University sources said scores of students and faculty from different streams had worked on this satellite for the last six years.

ANUSAT is a store-and-forward communication satellite that will help transfer confidential academic materials, including exam question papers, to prevent question paper leakages. It will also help monitor drought and wasteland, urban planning and other studies.

This is the 15th flight of ISRO's workhorse PSLV, which had launched 30 satellites (14 for India and 16 for foreign countries) into a variety of orbits since 1993

 

[Screaming Skull]

Human in orbit in 7 yrs, Chandrayaan II launch 2011-12: ISRO​

April 20, 2009,

Sriharikota: The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) is planning to send two humans to orbit in the next seven years. ISRO has submitted a Rs 12,400 crore ($ 2.5 billion) project report to the government for its approval. Meanwhile, 2009 is going to be the year of “fireworks” for ISRO, which scheduled four more launches in 2009 and Chandrayaan II launch in 2011-12.

G Madhavan Nair, chairman, ISRO said that government has approved pre project report Rs 90 crore for Human Space Mission. Now, a detail project report was submitted to the government for approval. He noted, the planning commission already approved the Rs 12,400 crore ($ 2.5 billion) mission.

The money will be spent for training Astronauts, setting up a launch pad, handling the crew, mission control system, technologies and hardware.

“We will be sending two humans for the orbit, 270 kms away from the Earth, in seven years”.

He also said 2009 is going to be the year of fireworks for ISRO and it would continue. "We will be launching Oceansat II, Gsat IV and Resourcesat and others. Indigenously developed cryogenic engine will be inducted this year." ISRO has scheduled four launches starting from June this year.

While giving update on Chandrayaan, which was launched end of 2008, he said it is doing well and sending pictures for the past six months. “Chandrayaan II launch plan is going on in full swing and it will be a soft launch,” said Nair.

The rocket will carry one or two small vehicles and will land it in the moon. These machines will do analysis of the samples and will send back the data. Currently Chandrayaan sends only picture but doesn’t do any analyse on the resources.

Chandrayaan II will be launched in 2011 end or 2012 beginning with Russian collobration, said Nair.

 

[godsavetheworld]

^^ THATS AWESOME!!!! "ISRO" has finally made itself the new "cool word" in India. They are actually earning $2.5 billion a year, through multiple ventures. Thats enormous money.

 

[startrex]

My first post here .
I went across this specific thread regarding why India is spending billions in space exploration when there is rampant poverty me having been a part of this programme felt compelled to join this forum just to respond. The answer is simple ....To solve it .

People many of them Indians are still unaware as to what exactly ISRO does and how it affects the life of every common Indian right from the poverty affected ones to the emerging industrialists.

Education first : Every country has the right to make its citizens literate and India uses space for it .
India is the country perhaps the only country in the world that has launched a satellite solely for education it is called Edusat and it connects all low funded universities to the top ones so that they can have integrated classes as well as seminars . Me being a student gets personally benefited every day.

For farmers there is a technologically sound water resources management and locust warning system that predicts sudden change of flow of rivers , locusts, wind pattern etc the Indian agriculture depends a lot on monsoons and there is also an India specific three dimensional wind pattern and weather prediction system that is many a farmers lifeline. The Floods in many parts of the country do not make it tho the news papers because the sats pick it up give early warning to the rescue teams

Health : This is perhaps the most important of ISROs activities called the tele medicine project it gives Live video conferencing sessions to poor patients from across the country with doctors who perhaps are the best in the world in their respective fields . Surgeries are planned small treatments are advised to nearby doctors { who refer the cases in the first place } and this has had a considerable impact on national health

Now the moon and strategic stuff : Let me assure you the moon mission was as cheap as any other mission the agency did . With the growing economy the moon mission cost was pocket change and strategic issues are funded only along millitary budget lines nothing more it is normal everywhere.

And one thing that many users dont know is that ISRO is not an agency that uses money but makes it . The satellite market worldwide is worth 10 billion and this year we launched close to ten foreign satellites and that means a lot of money .

So the person who was so keen to know why a developing country like India is investing on space{and allegedly not on food } please feel free to clarify any doubts