India's remote sensing program was developed with the idea of applying space technologies for the benefit of humankind and the development of the country. The program involved the development of three principal capabilities. The first was to design, build and launch satellites to a

Sun-synchronous orbit A Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), also called a heliosynchronous orbit, is a nearly polar orbit around a planet, in which the satellite passes over any given point of the planet's surface at the same local mean solar time. More technically, it is ...

. The second was to establish and operate ground stations for spacecraft control, data transfer along with data processing and archival. The third was to use the data obtained for various applications on the ground. India demonstrated the ability of

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...

for societal application by detecting coconut root-wilt disease from a helicopter mounted multispectral camera in 1970. This was followed by flying two experimental satellites, Bhaskara-1 in 1979 and Bhaskara-2 in 1981. These satellites carried optical and microwave payloads. India's remote sensing programme under the

Indian Space Research Organization The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister o ...

(ISRO) started off in 1988 with the IRS-1A, the first of the series of indigenous state-of-art operating remote sensing satellites, which was successfully launched into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit on March 17, 1988, from the Soviet Cosmodrome at Baikonur. It has sensors like LISS-I which had a spatial resolution of with a swath of on ground. LISS-II had two separate imaging sensors, LISS-II A and LISS-II B, with spatial resolution of each and mounted on the spacecraft in such a way to provide a composite swath of on ground. These tools quickly enabled India to map, monitor and manage its natural resources at various spatial resolutions. The operational availability of data products to the user organisations further strengthened the relevance of remote sensing applications and management in the country.

IRS System

Following the successful demonstration flights of Bhaskara-1 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 Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

water resources Water resources are natural resources of water that are potentially useful for humans, for example as a source of drinking water supply or irrigation water. These resources can be either Fresh water, freshwater from natural sources, or water produ ...

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and Natural environment, environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and ...

and ecology, geology, water sheds, marine

fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farm ...

and

coastal management Coastal management is defence against flooding and erosion, and techniques that stop erosion to claim lands. Protection against rising sea levels in the 21st century is crucial, as sea level rise accelerates due to climate change. Changes in s ...

. Towards this end, India had established the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) for which the

Department of Space The Department of Space (DoS) is an Indian government department responsible for administration of the Indian space programme. It manages several agencies and institutes related to space exploration and space technologies. The Indian space pr ...

(DOS) is the nodal agency, providing operational

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 Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...

, 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 11 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 Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

characterizations at landscape level - http://bis.iirs.gov.in * Preharvest crop area and production estimation of major crops. *

Drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition. *

Flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment. * Hydro-geomorphological maps for locating underground water resources for drilling well. *

Irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

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 A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

mapping * Environmental impact analysis *

Mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

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. * North Eastern District Resources Plan (NEDRP)

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). From 2020, the name was changed to the generic EOS, which stands for Earth Observation Satellite.

IRS Data Availability

Data from IRS is available to its users through NRSC Data Centre and also through Bhuvan Geoportal of ISRO. NRSC data center provides 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 UN affiliated Center of Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) Center located at Dehradun of Uttrakhand State in India.

References

{{Indian spacecraft
Earth observation satellites of India Remote sensing programs 1988 establishments in India