ISRO to Launch 13 satellites and Cartosat-3

The Indian Space Research Organization will launch 13 commercial nanosatellites of the United States along with the imaging and mapping satellite Cartostat-3. The launch is scheduled for November 25, 2019.

Highlights

The satellites will be launched by PSLV-C47, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle into Sun Synchronous Orbit from Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.

CartoSAT-3

Cartosat-3 is the third generation Earth observation satellite built by ISRO. It is one of the most advanced imaging satellites built by the organization so far. It has the capability to produce high-resolution aerial images in the world. The features of the satellite include

• Panchromatic-Captures all visible colors of light
• Hyperspectral-Captures light from the electromagnetic spectrum
• Multispectral-Captures light within specific ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.

To date, eight Cartosats have been launched.

13 commercial satellites

The 13 satellites are launched by the Luxembourg based space company Kleos, as a part of its multi-satellite constellation mission called the Scouting Mission. The Scouting mission aims to provide a global picture of unregistered marine activity and surveillance and intelligence capability to government and commercial entities. The mission also has an Automatic Identification system that rectifies commonly faced challenges of the surveillance mission.