Cartrosat camera likely to be tested tomorrow

Bangalore, Jan 11 (UNI) Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists will start testing of the Panchromatic camera onboard its latest remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2 tomorrow.

The condition of the satellite hurled into a polar sun synchronous orbit in a copy book launch of PSLV-C7 yesterday from the Satish Dhawan Spaceport in Sriharikota, was fine and the satellite was orbitting around 639 km over the earth one in about 100 minutes.

The launch was so perfect that the spacecraft controllers might use minimal fuel for orbit trimming operations, ISRO sources told UNI here today. The Pan camera would be operated upon tomorrow.

Twelfth in the Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite series, Cartosat-2 was an advanced remote sensing satellite capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery. Its Pan camera was capable of providing images with a spatial resolution of better than one metre and a swath of 9.6 km.

The data from the satellite would be used for cartographic applications at cadastral level, urban and rural infrastructure development and management, as well as applications in Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS).

The sources said the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) which would have control of the images would fine tune the camera and make necessary corrections so that they could be made available to user agencies soon.

Soon after its separation from the Dual Launcher, the two solar arrays of CARTOSAT-2 were automatically deployed to generate the electrical power for the satellite.

The sources said the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1) was also functioning to the prescribed norms. The SRE-1, which would mark a major milestone in Indian Space endeavour as the country would join the select band of countries which could retrieve satellites using re-entry techniques. The 550 kg capsule would be de-orbited and was likely to re-enter the earth's surface around January 22 or 23, the sources said.

It had a payload for performing experiments in microgravity conditions.

UNI