India to launch military satellite

New Delhi: India will launch its first satellite dedicated for military purposes in the next two months.

CARTOSAT 2A, to be launched by ISRO, will capture objects on the ground with a resolution of less than a metre.

It will revisit areas every four days but it can be programmed to return to an area one day after flying over it.

The new satellites will give India round the clock coverage of China, Pakistan and other parts of the region including Afghanistan.

CARTOSAT 2A will boast of spatial resolution and will be loaded with cameras that can supply advanced imagery. It will cater to military and intelligence specifications than any existing Indian satellite.

Launch of the first military satellite will be rapidly followed by the launch of two more advanced imaging satellites by next year to give India the capability of keeping an eye round-the-clock on the region surrounding the country.

The first military satellite will have an Israeli synthetic aperture radar that can take pictures of the earth through cloud and rain round the clock.

With three advanced reconnaissance satellites in orbit, Indian military agencies will have the capability to keep an eye on the airspace over Pakistan and China, to study the oceans and monitor changes in winds across the seas.

India currently has in orbit three dual-purpose satellites - CARTOSAT-I, CARTOSAT-II and the Technical Experiment Satellite - that are used by the country's space agency and the military.

The launch of CARTOSAT 2A has been timed to coincide with the scheduled delivery of the country's first airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft by Israel to give the armed forces a network-centric platform for carrying out surveillance from the ground to the stratosphere.

(With agency inputs)