IRS

  IRS (Indian Remote Sensing satellite system) is the first national system, created for Earth nature resources researching, and belongs to NNRMS (National Natural Resources Management System) of India.

IRS-1Cwaslaunched on December 28, 1995 aboard Russian carrier booster Molnia from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. IRS-1D was launched on September 29, 1996 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre aboard the Indian PSLV-C1 missile (ShriharikotaIsland). IRS Indian Remote Sensing Program started with the launch of IRS-1A. The program is carried out under supervision of Indian Governmental Department of Space Research. IRS-1C and IRS-1D were set into polar sun-synchronous orbit at the height of 817 km and 373-823 km correspondingly. The satellites acquire digital surface coverage with spatial resolution of 5,8m in panchromatic mode, 23.5 and 70m in multispectral mode (LISS-3), as well as 188m (WiFS).  Estimated IRS orbit life is 3 years. 

Basic characteristics:

The PAN camera provides data with a spatial resolution of 5.8m and a ground swath of 70 km at nadir view. This camera can be steered up to +/- 26 degrees, which can be used to acquire stereo pairs and this also improves the revisit capability to 5 days.

LISS — III camera provides multi-spectral data in 4 bands. The spatial resolution for visible (two bands) and near infrared (one band) is 23.5m with a ground swath of 141 km. The fourth band (short wave infrared band) has a spatial resolution of 70.5m with a ground swath of 148 km. The repetivity of LISS — III is 24 days.

WiFS camera collects data in two spectral bands with a spatial resolution of 188m and a ground swath of 810 km. By virtue of its wide swath there is huge side lap between adjacent paths. A repetivity of 3 days can be achieved by suitably combining paths.

RS-P5 (Cartosat-1) satellite imagery

IRS-P5 (Cartosat-1) was launched on May 5, 2005 aboard satellite-launching rocket PSLV-C6. The satellite is owned by ISRO Indian Space Research Organization. IRS Indian Remote Sensing Program started with the launch of IRS-1A. The program is carried out under supervision of Indian Governmental Department of Space Research. IRS-P5 was set into polar sun-synchronous orbit at the height of 618 km. The satellite is fitted with two panchromatic scanners acquiring digital imagery with spatial resolution of 2.5 m for the survey of 30km width. IRS-P5 acquires stereo images with high metric properties enabling Digital Elevation Modeling with 5m accuracy according to the height. Active mission life – 3 years at least.

IRS-P6 (Resourcesat-1) satellite imagery

IRS-P6 (Resourcesat-1) was launched on October 17, 2003 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre by the Indian PSLV-C5 missile. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) owns IRS-P6. IRS Indian Remote Sensing Program started with the launch of IRS-1A. The program is carried out under supervision of Indian Governmental Department of Space Research. Resourcesat-1 was set into sun-synchronous orbit at the 817 km altitude. Resourcesat-1 is based on КА IRS-1C/1D. Together with LISS-3 it is also fitted with advanced scanner LISS-4 acquiring digital satellite imagery with spatial resolution of 5,8m both in panchromatic and multispectral modes with better radiometric quality, as well as new generation scanner AWiFS acquiring imagery with resolution of 55m in 740km width. Perspective orbit life time is 5 years.