A new satellite, OCEANSAT-2, would be launched in 2007-08 to study physical and biological aspects of oceanography, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation G Madhavan Nair said on Friday.
The OCEANSAT-2 would study the oceans and the wind surface of oceans.
“It is more powerful than the OCEANSAT-1 (launched in May 1999), which was nearing the end of its life cycle,” Nair told reporters after addressing a media workshop.
The OCEANSAT-2 would carry an Ocean Colour Monitor and a Ku-band pencil beam “scatterometer”, which is an active microwave radar and operates at 13.515 GHz providing a good resolution cell size of 50 kms x 50kms, he said.
It will also carry radio occulation sounder for atmospheric studies, developed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI).
OCEANSAT-2 will be used for identification of potential fishing zones, sea state forecasting, coastal zone studies and provide input for weather forecasting and climatic studies, according to a senior ISRO official.
The OCEANSAT-2 is scheduled for launch in 2007-08 by PSLV into a near polar sun-synchronous orbit of 720 kms. This orbit combined with wide swathe of both payloads will provide an observational repetitivty of two days, he said.
The Ocean colour Monitor is an eight band multi-spectral camera operating in the visible-near infrared spectral range. This camera provides an instantaneous geometric field of view of 360 metre covering a swath of 1420 kms.
The back scattered beams from the ocean surface would be measured to derive the wind vector.
Source: The Economic Times
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