Friday, April 29 2005 15:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to launch its latest state-of-the-art remote sensing satellite, CARTOSTAT-1 in the first week of May from Sriharikota.

The ninth flight of India's Polar Satellite Launch vehicle, PSLV-C6, carrying CARTOSTAT-1 and a piggyback satellite, HAMSAT, is planned for launch in the first week of May from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, an ISRO statement said in Chennai.

"CARTOSTAT-1 is first of its kind in the civilian domain and will be equipped with two cameras, with spatial resolution of 2.5 metres. These high resolution cameras will take stereoscopic images for cadastral level mapping and updating," Director - P & PR, ISRO, S Krishnamurthy, told sources.

The satellite can spot and take images on any object, which is 2.5 metres in size, on the earth's surface. "The cameras will provide high resolution images taken in different angles and these pictures would be precise and accurate," he added.

The cost of this project is about Rs 250 crore. Some of the benefits of this remote sensing satellite relate to applications in areas of topographic mapping, topography database generation, land-use, Geographical Information Systems, forest cover and river flows, among others.