India’s Polar Satellite Vehicle has launched the Cartosat-2 series satellite along with 30 co-passenger satellites in Andhra Pradesh. Cartosat-2 series satellite is a dedicated satellite for defense forces.
Cartosat-2 series satellite weighs 712 kg which is sent for earth observation while 30 co-passenger satellites together weigh 243 kgs is sent to polar sun synchronous orbit. These co-passenger satellites include 29 Nanosatellites from 14 countries which are Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America while one from India.
The nano satellites of the international customer are being launched as part of Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of ISRO and International customers.
Cartosat-2 is a remote sensing satellite and it is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series with the objective of providing high-resolution scene specific spot imagery. It has a resolution of 0.6 meters.
Once this satellite becomes operational, it would be handed over to the defence forces, which have their own infrastructure, which includes ground stations, and trained manpower to access data.