India will launch its new Earth observation satellite, Cartosat-2C, from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota in south India in May, to boost the country’s military reconnaissance and surveillance capability.
Aviation Week reports that according to an official at the Indian Space and Research Organization, the observatory will be placed in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit with a perigee of 124 miles and an apogee of 745.6 miles above the Earth’s surface. Cartosat-2C will be a dual-use satellite, performing disaster monitoring as well as surveying enemy missile sites.
The 1,520 pound satellite is equipped with a panchromatic camera and a high-resolution multi-spectral instrument, which has a resolution of 2.1 feet. (0.65 meters) The camera can capture not only high-resolution images of the country’s border and coastal areas, but also record videos of crucial targets from space and transmit compressed versions to the ground.
