India to launch Bhuvan in March 2009

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 23 December 2008, 22:36 IST   |    16 Comments
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New Delhi: In what may be a remarkable development in real time exercises like disaster management and military operations, India will launch Bhuvan, the country's version of Google Earth in March 2009 from Indian Space Research organization (ISRO). Bhuvan will be able to deliver high resolution imagery data of the order of five meter, and is expected to give better quality for data than Google Earth. "Though Google Earth can provide high resolution data in the order of less than a meter, those data are two to three year old. It cannot be of much use for any real-time exercise. Whereas Bhuvan will provide the relevant data for any real-time exercise," said S K Pathan, Head, Geo Informatics Data Division, ISRO. "Bhuvan, which means earth, will get the images from the satellites and provide high resolution imagery data of the order of five meter. It can show the topography, altitude, depth and other features of any specific locations," he added. Such information are necessary when undertaking a massive exercise like flood management or post-cyclone disaster mitigation.