India to launch 30 satellites for data collection

BANGALORE - India plans to launch 30 satellites in the next 10 years to strengthen its lead role in data collection and dissemination, a top scientist said Tuesday.

“We expect (to launch) not less than 30 satellites,” V. Jayaraman, director of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), India’s one-stop centre for all the users of remote sensing data solutions, said here.

He said that the ‘Resourcesat-2′ satellite was expected to be launched by the end of January next. It would replace the ‘Resourcesat-1′ which was launched in October 2003 to obtain high resolution multi-spectral data.

The Hyderabad-based NRSC, a full-fledged centre of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), would have an integrated multi-mission ground station by June next year to receive all the satellite data, he said.

“This will help the centre to supply 1,000 products to the users directly,” Jayaraman told a meeting on Karnataka State Geospatial Database. It was organised by the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre.

NRSC now delivers products in four or five days of receiving the data. The new station, being set up at a cost of around Rs.40 crore, would help deliver the products within 12 hours, he said.

The chief activities of NRSC are satellite data and aerial data reception, data processing, data dissemination; applications for providing value added services and training. It also distributes data from foreign satellites.