India has done it again! Just after a few months of the Balakot strike, ISRO has launched a spy satellite which will be able to keep a lookout from space even during cloudy conditions or in case of heavy rains. Irrespective of the weather conditions, the RISAT-2B satellite will be able to capture images.
The launch took place from Sriharikota at 5:30 am today and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was used to launch RISAT-2B which weighs 615 kg. During the launch, the made in India Vikram Processor was also used.
Before this also, two Radar Imaging Satellites have been launched, RISAT-1, RISAT-2. RISAT-1 was declared dead in 2017. On the other hand, RISAT-2 is still in the orbit, the reason for no images is unknown.
Another satellite called the CartoSAT which also acts as a spy satellite, but it gets blinded by heavy clouding or rains. Also, CartoSAT has poor resolution.
RISAT-2B on the other hand can also take mosaics and strips of images. RISAT-2B is a low earth orbit satellite and has been placed at a height of 557 km. It is a multipurpose satellite, which will be able to see forest cover, and will also be used from the disaster management point of view along with monitoring of agriculture.
During the wee hours of February 26, the Indian Air Force (IAF) had had a terror camp strike by sending Mirage 2000 fighter in Balakot’s terror which is way inside the Pak territory. As per some experts, cloud cover and adverse weather may have blinded the satellites due to which no image or video could be released of the operation. This is where the CartoSAT failed and could not assess the damage.
However, RISAT-2B will help the defense forces in tracking cross border activities. It has a life of five years and if everything goes as planned, RISAT-BR1 and RISAT-2BR2 will also be launched soon enough.
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