BANGALORE:
India is expected to launch an advanced satellite with military and other applications by the year-end on board a home-grown rocket that will also put an Israeli satellite in space.
`Cartosat-2A is ready for launch,` an ISRO official said.
G Madhavan Nair, secretary in the Department of Space and chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation, indicated that Cartosat-2A, a remote sensing satellite, and Israel`s Polaris would be launched together on the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket if this is technically feasible.
`There are some technical issues that have to be resolved. We are in discussion with them (Israeli space agency)...(we will go for simultaneous launch) if it`s technically feasible. There are some questions to be discussed,` Nair said here.
`We have not yet finalised the date for the launch. We want to do it before the end of the year. That`s our target`.
ISRO officials brushed aside suggestions in some quarters that Cartosat-2A is India`s first dedicated defence satellite but gave enough indications that it could be used for military purposes.
`The pictures which we get from this satellite (Cartosat- 2A)...what applications we use...(are) left to the imagination of the user. We don`t put a restriction on anybody using it,` Nair said.
The new satellite has a panchromatic camera designed to provide imagery with one metre spatial resolution -- in other words, it can spot objects measuring only one metre. It is capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery for cartographic and other applications
