ISRO's satellite to boost India's surveillance capability
The satellite, designed to see through clouds and darkness at the night sky, is a boost to India's satellite-based surveillance capability. This launch follows the India-Pakistan ceasefire after 'Operation Sindoor', and as New Delhi stays alert despite calm along the borders.
The "spy" satellite is designed by ISRO's UR Rao Satellite Center in Bengaluru. The C-band synthetic aperture radar enables the satellite to capture high-resolution images of the Earth's surface, which will be better than the Cartosat-3 satellite, which gets blinded at night.
Cartosat-3 satellite could only beam down images with a resolution of less than half a meter from its low Earth Orbit.
India has around 57 satellites in space, including four radar satellites in orbit.
The radar satellites were used to keep a watch on the borders after tensions rose between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack.
Under the mission the scientists will place the all-weather earth observation satellite into the sun-synchronous polar orbit (SPO).
The PSLV-C61 is also the 63rd flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the 27th using the PSLV-XL configuration.
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