RISAT-2, or Radar Imaging Satellite-2 was an Indian

radar imaging Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), direction (geometry), direction (azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to det ...

reconnaissance satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The ...

that was part of India's RISAT programme. It was procured from

Israel Aerospace Industries Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI; ), is Israel's major aerospace and aviation manufacturer, producing aerial and astronautic systems for both military and civilian usage. It has 14,000 employees as of 2021. IAI is state-owned by the government ...

(IAI) and successfully launched aboard a PSLV-CA launch vehicle at 01:15:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on 20 April 2009 from the Second Launch Pad at the

Satish Dhawan Space Centre Satish Dhawan Space Centre – SDSC (formerly Sriharikota Range – SHAR) is the primary spaceport of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), located in Sriharikota, Tirupati district, Andhra Pradesh. The spaceport is located on an isl ...

. It is designed to monitor India's

border Borders are generally defined as geography, geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by polity, political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other administrative divisio ...

s and as part of anti-infiltration and anti-terrorist operations. The satellite has a mass of .

History

RISAT-2 was procured following the

2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also referred to as 26/11 attacks, were a series of coordinated Islamic terrorism, Islamist terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist o ...

, due to delay with the indigenously developed C-band for RISAT-1. It is India's first dedicated radar reconnaissance satellite. RISAT-2 was procured at a cost of USD 200 million from Israel. In terms of configuration and capability it is identical to TecSAR-1 launched in 2008 by ISRO's PSLV which marked the beginning of India-Israel space cooperation.

Technical capabilities

RISAT-2 was India's first satellite with a synthetic-aperture radar (SAR). It possess day-night as well as all-weather monitoring capability. Potential applications include tracking hostile ships at sea that are deemed a military threat to India. Though ISRO sought to underplay the satellite's defence applications in its announcements, a substantial number of articles concerning RISAT-2 in the Indian media continue to refer to it as a "spy satellite". This is also supported by the fact that its Israeli sensor is clearly pronounced a military grade sensor by its manufacturer

(IAI).

Launch

ISRO scientists spent tense hours on 19 April 2009 prior to launch as one of the umbilical cords holding the PSLV-CA launch vehicle to the launch pad fell off, damaging nearly six connectors.

ANUSAT satellite

The ANUSAT student

microsatellite A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain Sequence motif, DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organ ...

(40 kg) was launched aboard the same launch vehicle as a secondary payload.

Mission

RISAT-2 was used to search for and eventually locate wreckage of the helicopter crash that claimed the life of Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, as well as the lives of his fellow passengers, while traveling over dense jungles in southern India on 2 September 2009. The satellite made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere over Sumatra on 30 October 2022 at 00:06 UTC after providing payload data for 13 years.

References