New Delhi: India on Wednesday morning launched a new satellite into orbit, which promises to thwart the nefarious designs of enemy countries on our soil.
The high-resolution pictures and imaging capabilities of the satellite would also help India launch more Balakot type military strikes against hostile neighbours with confidence and assesses the damage inflicted with more accuracy.
Here’s what you need to know about the new satellite:
- The RISAT-2B ‘spy’ satellite is capable of keeping a lookout from space even in cloudy conditions.
- It has special imaging capabilities to take strips of images and mosaics of images.
- It has been placed at a low earth 557-kilometre orbit, a suitable level for detecting hostile installations as well as monitoring agriculture, forestry and possible disaster zones.
- With a new set of radar-enabled satellites at its disposal, the space agency hopes to provide India’s armed forces with the ability to keep track of activities across its eastern and western borders.
- Although the country also has high-resolution optical imaging CartoSAT satellites, they get blinded by dense cloud cover.
The launch of RISAT-2B was realised in 15 months and it has a life of five years, and if all goes well, two clones – RISAT-BR1 and RISAT-2BR2 – will be launched in the coming months. Some of these launches have been advanced by as many as 18 months, reliable sources in the ISRO confirmed.
