India's remote sensing satellite — Resourcesat-2A—has been successfully launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the satellite has been slotted into an 818 km Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit.
The launch of Resourcesat-2A aboard a PSLV-C36 rocket.
The photo is courtesy of ISRO.
A Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle—PSLV-C36—carried the 1.2 ton Resourcesat-2A from the primary launch pad at India's Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, with the ISRO using an XL version of the rocket in for the rocket's 38th flight. In the 18 years from 1994 to 2016, PSLV has worked 36 successful launches and has 121 satellites, including 79 satellites from abroad.
Resourcesat-2A is a remote sensing satellite intended for resource monitoring and is a follow-on mission to Resourcesat-1 and Resourcesat-2, which were launched in 2003 and 2012, respectively. The satellite is packing three payloads, which are similar to those of Resourcesat-1 and Resourcesat-2. They are the high resolution Linear Imaging Self Scanner (LISS-4) camera operating in three spectral bands in the visible and near infrared region (VNIR) with a 5.8 m spatial resolution. The second payload is the medium resolution LISS-3 camera operating in three-spectral bands in VNIR and one in short wave infrared (SWIR) band with 23.5m spatial resolution. The third payload is a coarse resolution Advanced Wide Field Sensor camera operating in three spectral bands in VNIR and one band in SWIR with 56m spatial resolution.
The satellite also has two solid state recorders, each with a capacity of 200 gigabits for storing the imagery captured by the cameras, which the ground stations can later access.
