India to launch military satellite by year end

[Adux]

India to launch military satellite by year end

July 29, 2007 15:31 IST

India is on the threshold of joining a select band of advanced countries by putting into orbit a dedicated military satellite.

The military-specific reconnaissance satellite CARTOSAT-2A will be launched on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle by the Indian Space Research Organisation by the end of this year, ISRO officials said.

The satellite will give India the capability to keep tabs on missile launches in its neighbourhood.

CARTOSAT-2A was earlier programmed to be put into space by the first week of August, but its launch has now been scheduled for mid-September or early October, officials said.

Along with the country's own military satellite, ISRO is also planning to launch an Israeli reconnaissance satellite called POLARIS [Get Quote].

The Israeli satellite will ride piggyback on the 1,100-kg CARTOSAT-2A, and will be the third foreign satellite to be launched by ISRO, sources said.

CARTOSAT-2A will boast of spatial resolution and will be loaded with cameras that can supply advance imagery. It will cater full time to military and intelligence specifications, unlike existing Indian satellite.

The launch of the nation's first military satellite will be rapidly followed by launch of two more advanced imaging satellites by next year to give India a means to keep a close eye round-the-clock on the neighbouring region.

The first Radar Imaging Satellite carrying a C-BAND synthetic aperture radar will have a spatial resolution of three metres to 50 metres and a swath of 10 km to 240 km.

The second reconnaissance satellite to be launched by ISRO will be the OCEANSAT-2, with 8-band multi-spectral cameras, giving the spy vehicle the air a capability to keep a watch on a wide expanse of up to 1,420 km of the ocean to monitor the movement of naval surface warships and submarines.

Though ISRO sources were tightlipped, it is learnt that the Israeli military satellite POLARIS and CARTOSAT-2A can take pictures of the earth through cloud and rain, which no other Indian satellite has been able to do so far.

The launch of CARTOSAT-2A is being timed to coincide with the scheduled delivery of the country's first Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft by Israel to give the armed forces a network-centric platform for carrying out surveillance from the ground to the stratosphere.

The supply of the Phalcon AWACS is scheduled for early next year. India has signed a deal with Israel and Russia [Images] for purchase of three such AWACS, and has kept options open for the acquisition of three more.

The launch of the military satellite is being undertaken in tandem with the Indian Air Force's plan to set up an integrated air command, control and communication system.

The plan envisages the linking of AWACS, aerostat balloon radars and low-level transportable radars of the IAF with the dedicated military satellite.

With three advanced reconnaissance satellites in orbit, Indian military agencies will have the capability to keep an eye on the airspace over Pakistan and China and also to study the oceans and monitor changes in winds across the seas.

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[IceCold]

It will give India a great advantage over its neighbours, is it the only military use satellite of this kind or there are more of them already. Adux the satellite i think is to keep an eye on china coz pakistan and india are already in some kind of aggrement of telling inadvance to the opposition about missle testing. Besides the AWACS acquired by india are more then enough to keep eye on pakistan terrority.