Cabinet gives cost approval of Resourcesat-II mission

New Delhi, Mar 9 (UNI) The Union Cabinet tonight approved a proposal to undertake the design and development of a Resourcesat-2 Mission at a total estimated cost of Rs 138.79 crore with a foreign exchange component of Rs 88.50 crore.

Resourcesat-2 Mission, which is the in-orbit replacement for the IRS-P6 (Resourcesat-1) Mission, will provide continuity of remote sensing data services to the user community on an operational basis for integrated land and water resources management at micro level, as well as to continue activities pertaining to agricultural crop acreage and production estimation, command area management and many applications pertaining to disaster management support, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi told mediapersons after the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Other significant applications are in the updation of Natural Rsources Census, preparation of databases for Village Resource Centres and disaster amangement, he said.

The successful launching and operationalisation of the IRS series of satellites, starting from IRS-IA in 1989 to the recent launch of IRS-P5 (Cartosat-1), have enabled the user community to carry out many applications or relevance under the aegis of National Natural REsources Management System (NNRMS).

The IRS satellites have been well planned keeping the user demand as well as India's leading position in the world in remote sensing area. Also, the IRS satellites are configured to be launched using the indigenous PSLV launch vehicles and this dovetailing between IRS and PSLV has provided India an end-to-end capability in satellite remote sensing.

With the emphasis of IRS series of satellites shifting to specific theme oriented missions in the tenth five year plan namely resourcesat series of satellites for addressing land and water resources management, the Cartosat series of satellites providing information for large scale mapping applications and the ocean and atmospheric series of satellites providing data for weather and climate applications, the Indian Earth Observation Programme has established its niche in the overall global scenario.

The Resourcesat-1 (IRS-P6) Mission was launched on Octoebr 17, 2003 using PSLV-C5, and has since been functioning well.

Internationally, there has been appreciation for Resourcesat-1.

The operational mission life of Resourcesat-1 is expected to be five years and the mission is expected to be operational at least till end 2008.

Hence, it is important to plan for an in-orbit replacement satellite for Resourcesat-1 well before 2008 to ensure continuity without any break.

Considering the lead-time needed to develop and deploy the in-orbit replacement satellite, it became essential to plan for the Resourcesat data both at the domestic and at the international level, and it is of paramount importance to provide the continuity of services without going in for any changes in the space and ground segments of the planned in-orbit replacement satellite to ensure compatibility with the ground systems already established.

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