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India's remote sensing program was developed with the idea of applying space technologies for the benefit of humankind and the development of the country. The program involved the development of three principal capabilities. The first was to design, build and launch satellites to a Sun-synchronous orbit. The second was to establish and operate ground stations for spacecraft control, data transfer along with data processing and archival. The third was to use the data obtained for various applications on the ground.

India demonstrated the ability of remote sensing for societal application by detecting coconut root-wilt disease from a helicopter mounted multispectral camera in 1970. This was followed by flying two experimental satellites, Bhaskara-1 in 1979 and Bhaskara-2 in 1981. These satellites carried optical and microwave payloads.

India's remote sensing programme under the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) started off in 1988 with the IRS-1A, the first of the series of indigenous state-of-art operating remote sensing satellites, which was successfully launched into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit on March 17, 1988, from the Soviet Cosmodrome at Baikonur.

It has sensors like LISS-I which had a spatial resolution of 72.5 metres (238 ft) with a swath of 148 kilometres (92 mi) on ground. LISS-II had two separate imaging sensors, LISS-II A and LISS-II B, with spatial resolution of 36.25 metres (118.9 ft) each and mounted on the spacecraft in such a way to provide a composite swath of 146.98 kilometres (91.33 mi) on ground. These tools quickly enabled India to map, monitor and manage its natural resources at various spatial resolutions. The operational availability of data products to the user organisations further strengthened the relevance of remote sensing applications and management in the country.

IRS System

Following the successful demonstration flights of Bhaskara-1 and Bhaskara-2 satellites launched in 1979 and 1981, respectively, India began to develop the indigenous Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite program to support the national economy in the areas of agriculture, water resources, forestry and ecology, geology, water sheds, marine fisheries and coastal management.

Towards this end, India had established the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) for which the Department of Space (DOS) is the nodal agency, providing operational remote sensing data services. Data from the IRS satellites is received and disseminated by several countries all over the world. With the advent of high-resolution satellites, new applications in the areas of urban sprawl, infrastructure planning and other large scale applications for mapping have been initiated.

The IRS system is the largest constellation of remote sensing satellites for civilian use in operation today in the world, with 11 operational satellites. All these are placed in polar Sun-synchronous orbit and provide data in a variety of spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions. Indian Remote Sensing Programme completed its 25 years of successful operations on March 17, 2013.

IRS data applications

Data from Indian Remote Sensing satellites are used for various applications of resources survey and management under the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS). Following is the list of those applications:

• Space Based Inputs for Decentralized Planning (SIS-DP)
• National Urban Information System (NUIS)
• ISRO Disaster Management Support Programme (ISRO-DMSP)
• Biodiversity characterizations at landscape level - http://bis.iirs.gov.in Archived 2015-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
• Preharvest crop area and production estimation of major crops.
• Drought monitoring and assessment based on vegetation condition.
• Flood risk zone mapping and flood damage assessment.
• Hydro-geomorphological maps for locating underground water resources for drilling well.
• Irrigation command area status monitoring
• Snow-melt run-off estimates for planning water use in down stream projects
• Land use and land cover mapping
• Urban planning
• Forest survey
• Wetland mapping
• Environmental impact analysis
• Mineral prospecting
• Coastal studies
• Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development (initiated in 1992) for generating locale-specific prescriptions for integrated land and water resources development in 174 districts.
• North Eastern District Resources Plan (NEDRP)

IRS launch log

The initial versions are composed of the 1 (A, B, C, D). The later versions are named based on their area of application, including OceanSat, CartoSat, ResourceSat. Some of the satellites have alternate designations based on the launch number and vehicle (P series for PSLV). From 2020, the name was changed to the generic EOS, which stands for Earth Observation Satellite.

IRS Data Availability

Data from IRS is available to its users through NRSC Data Centre and also through Bhuvan Geoportal of ISRO. NRSC data center provides data through its purchase process, while Bhuvan Geoportal provides data in free and open domain.

Capacity Building for IRS and Other Remote Sensing Data

The capacity building programme of ISRO for IRS and other remote sensing applications is through Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) Dehradun and UN affiliated Center of Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) Center located at Dehradun of Uttrakhand State in India.

Future IRS launches

References

1. Navalgund, R. R.; Kasturirangan, K. (1983-12-01). "The Indian remote sensing satellite: a programme overview". Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences Section C: Engineering Sciences. 6 (4): 313–336. Bibcode:1983InES....6..313N. doi:10.1007/BF02881137. ISSN 0973-7677. S2CID 140649818.
2. Comprehensive Remote Sensing. Elsevier. 2017-11-08. ISBN 978-0-12-803221-3. Archived from the original on 2022-05-18. Retrieved 2020-11-01.
3. ^ "The Saga of Indian Remote Sensing Satellite System - ISRO". www.isro.gov.in. Archived from the original on 2019-06-27. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
4. "FAS website on IRS". Archived from the original on 2016-08-20. Retrieved 2007-05-04.
5. Jones, Andrew (2020-11-07). "India back in action with launch of Earth observation satellite, nine rideshare small sats". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2021-01-06.

v t e Indian space programme
Department of Space (DoS)
Organisations	Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Antrix Corporation Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS) National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Development and Educational Communication Unit (DECU) Integrated Space Cell Defence Space Agency Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN–SPACe)
Programmes	Bhaskara GAGAN GSAT INSAT IRNSS IRS Cartosat RISAT Rohini SROSS Chandrayaan Human Spaceflight Programme
Satellites	APPLE Aryabhata HAMSAT IMS-1 Megha-Tropiques NISAR SARAL South Asia Satellite Kalpana-1
Space observatories	Astrosat Aditya-L1 XPoSat AstroSat-2 (proposed)
Lunar and planetary spacecraft	Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander Pragyan rover Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander Pragyan rover Chandrayaan-4 (upcoming) Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (proposed) Mars Orbiter Mission Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (proposed) Venus Orbiter Mission (proposed)
Human spaceflight	Indian human spaceflight programme SRE-1 SRE-II Gaganyaan CARE ISRO Space Station (proposed)
Launch vehicles	Active Orbital PSLV Launches GSLV Launches LVM3 SSLV Launches Suborbital Rohini ATV In development RLV Technology Demonstration Programme NGLV Retired SLV ASLV
Engines	Active CE-7.5 CE-20 Vikas In development SCE-200
Spaceports	Satish Dhawan Space Centre Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station under development Kulasekharapatnam Spaceport
Research facilities	Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre U R Rao Satellite Centre Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre ISRO Propulsion Complex Space Applications Centre ISRO Inertial Systems Unit Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems Human Space Flight Centre Development and Educational Communication Unit
Communications	Indian Deep Space Network Indian Space Science Data Centre ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network Master Control Facility National Remote Sensing Centre
Legislation and policy	Space Activities Bill
Private companies	Pixxel Skyroot Aerospace Satellize AgniKul Cosmos Dhruva Space Bellatrix Aerospace TeamIndus
Related	National Space Day SAGA-220 (supercomputer) Statio Shiv Shakti RESPOND
List of Indian satellites List of Satish Dhawan Space Centre launches List of ISRO missions List of ISRO chairpersons

v t e Indian spacecraft
List of Indian satellites List of Satish Dhawan Space Centre launches List of ISRO missions
Satellites	Communication CMS 01 02 GSAT 1 2 3 (EDUSAT) 4 5P 6 6A 7 7A 8 9 (South Asia Satellite) 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 29 30 31 HAMSAT INSAT 1A 1B 1C 1D 2A 2B 2C 2D 2DT 2E 3A 3B 3C 3D 3DR 3DS 3E 4A 4B 4C 4CR 4E 4F 4G Planned: GSAT 20 22 23 24 Earth observation Bhaskara I II Cartosat 1 2 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F 3 EMISAT EOS 1 2 4 7 8 HySIS IMS-1 IRS 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E P1 P2 P3 Megha-Tropiques Microsat Microsat-R Oceansat 1 2 Resourcesat 1 2 RISAT 1 2 2B 2BR1 Rohini RS-D1 RS-D2 SARAL SCATSAT-1 Technology Experiment Satellite (TESS) Planned: NISAR GISAT Oceansat-3 Resourcesat-3 RISAT-1A Experimental APPLE Aryabhata Rohini RS-1 Rohini Technology Payload (RTP) Navigation IRNSS 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F 1G 1I NVS-01 Student satellites ANUSAT Jugnu SRMSAT StudSat StudSat-2 YouthSat Pratham
Space probes	Scientific SROSS A B C C2 Astronomical Astrosat Aditya-L1 XPoSat AstroSat-2 (planned) Lunar programme Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe Chandrayaan-2 Vikram Pragyan Chandrayaan-3 Vikram Pragyan Lunar Polar Exploration Mission Chandrayaan-4 Chandrayaan-5 Chandrayaan-6 Interplanetary Mars Orbiter Mission Mars Orbiter Mission 2 (planned) Venus Orbiter Mission (planned)
Human spaceflight	Indian Human Spaceflight Programme SRE-1 SRE-II SRE-III Gaganyaan CARE Bharatiya Antariksha Station
Future spacecraft in italics.

• Earth observation satellites of India
• Remote sensing programs
• 1988 establishments in India