Indian Remote Sensing

IRS System

Following the successful demonstration flights of Bhaskhar and Bhaskara-2 satellites launched in 1979 and 1981, respectively, India began to develop the indigenous Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite program to support the national economy in the areas of agriculture, water resources, forestry and ecology, geology, water sheds, marine fisheries and coastal management.

Towards this end, India established the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) for which the Department of Space (DOS) is the nodal agency, providing operational remote sensing data services. Data from the IRS satellites is received and disseminated by several countries all over the world. With the advent of high-resolution satellites new applications in the areas of urban sprawl, infrastructure planning and other large scale applications for mapping have been initiated.

The IRS system is the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites for civilian use in operation today in the world, with 12 operational satellites. All these are placed in polar Sun-synchronous orbit and provide data in a variety of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions. Indian Remote Sensing Programme completed its 25 years of successful operations on March 17, 2013.

IRS data applications

Data from Indian Remote Sensing satellites are used for various applications of resources survey and management under the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS). Following is the list of those applications:

• Space Based Inputs for Decentralized Planning (SIS-DP)
• National Urban Information System (NUIS)
• ISRO Disaster Management Support Programme (ISRO-DMSP)
• Biodiversity Characterizations at landscape level- http://bis.iirs.gov.in
• Preharvest crop area and production estimation of major crops.
• Drought monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition.
• Flood risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment.
• Hydro-geomorphological maps for locating underground water resources for drilling well.
• Irrigation command area status monitoring
• Snow-melt run-off estimates for planning water use in down stream projects
• Land use and land cover mapping
• Urban planning
• Forest survey
• Wetland mapping
• Environmental impact analysis
• Mineral Prospecting
• Coastal studies
• Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development (initiated in 1992) for generating locale-specific prescriptions for integrated land and water resources development in 174 districts.

IRS launch log

The initial versions are composed of the 1 (A,B,C,D). The later versions are named based on their area of application including OceanSat, CartoSat, ResourceSat. Some of the satellites have alternate designations based on the launch number and vehicle (P series for PSLV).

Serial No.	Satellite	Date of Launch	Launch Vehicle	Status
1	IRS 1A	17 March 1988	Vostok, USSR	Mission Completed
2	IRS 1B	29 August 1991	Vostok, USSR	Mission Completed
3	IRS P1 (also IE)	20 September 1993	PSLV-D1	Crashed, due to launch failure of PSLV
4	IRS-P2	15 October 1994	PSLV-D2	Mission Completed
5	IRS-1C	28 December 1995	Molniya, Russia	Mission Completed
6	IRS-P3	21 March 1996	PSLV-D3	Mission Completed
7	IRS 1D	29 September 1997	PSLV-C1	Mission Completed
8	IRS-P4 (Oceansat-1)	27 May 1999	PSLV-C2	Mission Completed
9	Technology Experiment Satellite (TES)	22 October 2001	PSLV-C3	Mission Completed
10	IRS P6 (Resourcesat-1)	17 October 2003	PSLV-C5	In Service
11	IRS P5 (Cartosat 1)	5 May 2005	PSLV-C6	In Service
12	Cartosat 2 (IRS P7)	10 January 2007	PSLV-C7	In Service
13	Cartosat 2A	28 April 2008	PSLV-C9	In Service
14	IMS 1	28 April 2008	PSLV-C9	In Service
15	Oceansat-2	23 September 2009	PSLV-C14	In Service
16	Cartosat-2B	12 July 2010	PSLV-C15	In Service
17	Resourcesat-2	20 April 2011	PSLV-C16	In Service
18	Megha-Tropiques	12 October 2011	PSLV-C18	In Service
19	RISAT-1	26 April 2012	PSLV-C19	In Service
20	SARAL	25 Feb 2013	PSLV-C20	In Service

IRS Data Availability

Data from IRS are available to its users through NRSC Data Centre and also through Bhuvan Geoportal of ISRO. NRSC data center provide data through its purchase process while Bhuvan Geoportal provides data in free and open domain.

Capacity Building for IRS and Other Remote Sensing Data

The capacity building programme of ISRO for IRS and other remote sensing applications is through Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) Dehradun and Center of Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP)(UN affiliated) Center located at Dehradun of Uttrakhad State in India.

Future IRS launches

Following are the remote sensing satellites planned by ISRO to be launched next strengthening the fleet of IRS satellites and widening their applications:

• RESOURCESAT-3: A follow on to Resourcesat-2, it will carry more advanced LISS-III-WS (Wide Swath) Sensor having similar swath and revisit capability as Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), thus overcoming any spatial resolution limitation of AWiFS. Satellite would also carry Atmospheric Correction Sensor (ACS) for quantitative interpretation and geophysical parameter retrieval. It slated to be launched during 2021

• CARTOSAT-3: A continuation of Cartosat series, it will have a resolution 30 cm and 6 km swath suitable for cadastre and infrastructure mapping and analysis. It would also enhance disaster monitoring and damage assessment. It is slated to be launched during 2018.

• OCEANSAT-3: Oceasat-3 would carry Thermal IR Sensor, 12 channel Ocean Color Monitor, Scatterometer and Passive Microwave Radiometer. IR Sensor and Ocean Color Monitor would be used in the analysis for operational Potential Fishing Zones. Satellite is mainly for Ocean biology and sea state applications. It is slated to the launched aboard PSLV in 2012-13.

Satellite data acquisition and processing

The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) at Hyderabad is the nodal agency for reception, archival, processing and dissemination of remote sensing data in the country. NRSC acquires and processes data from all Indian remote sensing satellites like Cartosat-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1, IRS-1D, Oceansat-1 and Technology Experiment Satellite as well as foreign satellites like Terra, NOAA and ERS.

See also

• List of Indian satellites

External links

• CartoSat 2 images
• Official ISRO website
• FAS article on IRS system
• Bharat-Rakshak article on IRS system