India Launches All-Weather RISAT-1

The approved cost of RISAT-1, including its development, is Rs 378 crore, while Rs 120 crore has been spent to build the rocket (PSLV-C19), making it a Rs 498-crore mission. The spacecraft, which would be parked at its final orbit of 536 km altitude, has a mission life of five years and would make 14 orbits per day.

Besides use in the agriculture sector, RISAT-1 could also be used to keep round-the-clock vigil on the country's borders, but ISRO officials had said this satellite would not be used for defence applications. RISAT-2, primarily a spy spacecraft, is already doing that job. RISAT-1's capability to take images in all weather conditions including fog and haze would be a boon for regions perennially under cloud cover.

The satellite carries a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload, operating in a multi-polarisation and multi-resolution mode to provide images with coarse, fine and high spatial resolutions respectively.

The unique characteristics of SAR enable applications in agriculture, particularly paddy monitoring in kharif season and management of natural disasters like flood and cyclone.

The satellite would be particularly useful in Kharif season when cloud-covered atmosphere is frequent. Images taken from the spacecraft of agricultural crops would enable planners with regard to production estimation and forecast.

During floods, aerial pictures would give a clear idea on the affected region and water level.

Radhakrishnan said ISRO has a "busy year ahead" with several launches slated during 2012-13.

ISRO would soon launch a satellite on board European Space Agency's Ariane 5 from French Guyana and a PSLV with six satellites in August this year from India, he said. On the much awaited GSLV Mark III, he said the vehicle was "getting ready" undergoing tests at the ISRO facilities.

"The advanced launch vehicle GSLV Mark III has crossed several major milestones, the lower stages have been qualified and we would be taking an experimental flight of GSLV Mark III in an year from Sriharikota," he said.

The attempt would be essentially to test the vehicle systems in the atmospheric flight phase, he said.

The country would also launch an Indo-French satellite (SARAL or Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa) on board PSLV and a first Indian regional navigational satellite was planned in this financial year, he said.

Veteran space scientist Prof Yashpal termed the launch as a remarkable event. "It is not an event it is an accomplishment."

Complimenting the scientific community, Prof U R Rao said it was a landmark achievement. For the first time Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) had been used and it was a very difficult technology and done "wonderfully by the ISRO team".