India successfully launched the RISAT-1 satellite

On the morning of April 26, Indian scientists successfully launched the first radar imaging satellite produced by the country (Radar Imaging Satellite - RISAT-1).

RISAT-1 weighing 1.858kg, is a remote-controlled microwave sensor satellite, launched into orbit from a polar satellite launcher (PSLV) at 5:47 am on April 26 (local time ) on Sriharikota island, off the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

This is the 20th time India has successfully launched the satellite; RISAT-1 is the heaviest launched satellite from PSLV produced by the Indian Aerospace Research Organization (ISRO) after nearly 10 years of research.

Risat-1 satellite

So far, India has relied on images provided by Canadian satellites, because Indian satellites are made in the country without capturing images of the Earth in cloudy weather.

In April 2009, India successfully launched a radar image satellite (RISAT-2) capable of operating in all weather conditions, but the satellite purchased from Israel for $ 110 million, owner weak for observation purposes.

However, with RISAT-1, the country will be able to collect images from the Earth in all weather conditions, including dense fog, regardless of day or night.

The main application of RISAT-1 is to monitor crops, help estimate the yield of grain harvest, and monitor the situation of natural disasters such as floods and storms. Satellite can send to the center accurate images of flood affected areas as well as flood levels.

In addition to that, RISAT-1 can also be used for 24-hour guarding of Indian border areas. However, ISRO officials confirmed that RISAT-1 would not be used for defense purposes because RISAT-2 did this task.

The same morning, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh congratulated ISRO scientists on the success of launching the RISAT-1 satellite. He stressed that this is an important milestone in India's space program and believes that RISAT-1 will contribute significantly to India's remote satellite sensing capabilities.