Monday April 20, 2009, 4:06 pm

Boosting the defence surveillance capabilities of the nation, ISRO today launched an all-weather Israeli-built spy satellite to help the security agencies keep a vigil on the country’s borders and to monitor natural disasters.

The PSLV-C12, carrying 300-kg Radar Imaging Satellite and 40 kg micro educational satellite ANUSAT lifted off from Satish Dhawan space Centre at Sriharikotta, about 90 km north of Chennai, at 6:45am and placed into 550 km orbit around earth.

The 300 kg RISAT-2 will primarily keep an eye on the country's borders round-the-clock and help in anti-infiltration and anti-terrorist operations.

RISAT has all-weather capability to take images of the Earth and would also be beneficial in mapping and managing natural disasters, such as floods and landslides, besides amplifying defence surveillance capabilities of the nation.

It would also help keep track of ships at seat that could pose a threat. The 40 kg micro satellite ANUSAT, the co-passenger of RISAT 2, has been built by Anna University, to demonstrate the technologies related to message store and forward operations.

ANUSAT, the first satellite built by an Indian University, is a store-and-forward communication satellite that will help transfer confidential academic material and also monitor drought and wasteland, urban planning and other studies.

RISAT2 has a lifespan of three years and ANUSAT, one year. Different from previous remote sensing satellites, RISAT2 uses Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), equipped with many antennas, to receive signals which are processed into high-resolution pictures.

The radar, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries, equips RISAT with defence survellance capabilities. Its payload can take images during day, night and in all weather conditions, including under cloud cover, a capability that Indian satellites do not have.

Commenting on the launch ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair jubliantly said “the year 2009 has started off well. The final moments of the launch were more thrilling than a cricket match as we hit a few boundaries and bowled some googlies.”

“The performance of the PSLV-C12 launch vehicle was precise and on the dot. Again, we have set a record. As in the past, we declared the launch date, time and we made it happen”, he declared.

Referring to the launches this year, Nair said “ISRO has big goals to achieve this year. It is going to be almost like the fireworks season at Sriharikota”.

PSLV had also launched the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on October 22 last year. This is the 15th flight of ISRO's workhorse PSLV, which had launched 30 satellites (14 for India and 16 for foreign countries) into a variety of orbits since 1993.

Out of the 15 satellite launch missions it has flown since 1993, ISRO’s rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has delivered successful results except for once. A failure happened on its first developmental flight on September 20, 1993. After the success of the next two developmental flights there has been no looking back for the 44-metre-tall workhorse of the ISRO.

The successful missions resulted in ISRO getting launch orders for small satellites from other countries. In the international launch arena, PSLV's addressable market segment is mainly light weight satellites for placement in polar orbit.