Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO has over the years realised five generations of launch vehicles - SLV-3, ASLV, PSLV, GSLV, and GSLV-MkIII.
As part of it, India intends to launch on March 28 an earth observation satellite that will provide it near real-time images of its borders and also enable quick monitoring of natural disasters.
GISAT-1 is slated to be lofted into space by GSLV-F10 rocket from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh's Nellore district, about 100 kms north of Chennai.
The rocket will place the spacecraft in a geosynchronous orbit. It will be subsequently positioned in geostationary orbit, about 36,000 kms above earth's equator, using its onboard propulsion system. The launch of GISAT-1 onboard GSLV-F10 rocket was originally planned for March 5 last year but postponed a day before the blast-off due to technical reasons.
Experts said positioning the state-of-the-art agile earth observation satellite in geostationary orbit has key advantages. "It's going to be a game-changer in some sense for India", a Department of Space official said. Listing the objectives of the mission, ISRO has earlier said the satellite would provide near real-time imaging of the large area region of interest at frequent intervals. It would help in quick monitoring of natural disasters, episodic and any short-term events.
The third objective is to obtain spectral signatures of agriculture, forestry, mineralogy, disaster warning, cloud properties, snow and glacier and oceanography.
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