Sunday, May 8 2005 18:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: India's latest remote sensing satellite Cartosat-1 has started sending signals and it is expected to be declared operational in six weeks, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said today (May 8, 2005).

The two advanced high-resolution panchromatic cameras on board the spacecraft have been switched on and it has started sending encoded signals. "We will need a day or so to see the result," Nair said in Bangalore.

He said that final sequence operation had been completed as planned and Cartosat, designed for mapping applications, was now in its designated space slot.

"We now have test and evaluation programme, which would take five to six weeks, after which Cartosat-1 will be declared operational", Nair said. "All the systems are functioning normally".

According to ISRO officials, the 1560-kg satellite has been placed in a sun-synchronous polar orbit of 620 km, and it has a revisit capability of five days.

The Rs 248.49 crore satellite was launched by PSLV-C6 from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on May 5. The two cameras have a spatial resolution of 2.5 metres, which means it can take pictures of any object that is 2.5 metres in size on the earth's surface.