In a pre-dawn launch on May 22, RISAT-2B, the country's newest microwave Earth observation satellite, rode to its orbit 557 km above the ground. As the 25-hour countdown which began on Tuesday concluded, the agency's trusted workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C46) blasted off at 5.30 am from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here on its 48th mission, carrying the 615 kg satellite.

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Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sivan had earlier described the mission as a "very, very important" one for the country. "This is a very, very important mission for India. It is an excellent satellite with hi-fi earth observation (capabilities)," he had said.

Data that will come from the all-weather, day and night satellite are considered to be vital for the Armed Forces as also agriculture forecasters and disaster relief agencies.

Dr. Sivan said ISRO has included two important secondary or "piggyback" trial "payloads that would revolutionise ISRO's future missions."

The RISAT-2B is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar that can take pictures of the earth during day and night, and also under cloudy conditions. With a mission life of five years, the satellite would also be used for military surveillance, ISRO sources told PTI.

This is the third Indian RISAT in ten years, coming up after the Israeli- built RISAT-2 in 2009 and later ISRO- built RISAT-1 in 2012. The older two have reached the end of their lives. The other two were the PSLV-C45/EMISAT mission, which successfully injected the EMISAT and 29 international customer satellites into their orbits on April 1, and the PSLV-C44, which successfully placed the Microsat-R and the Kalamsat-V2 satellites in designated orbits on January 24. 

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