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India Launches World's First Stereo Imaging Satellite

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the zombies-look-so-real-in-three-dee dept.

sgups writes "India will tomorrow inaugurate a new launch pad at its Satish Dhawan space port near Chennai, on the south-east coast, by putting the world's first stereographic mapping satellite into orbit. The most innovative feature of the 1.6-tonne Cartosat-1 is its pair of cameras, which will give stereo images of the earth's surface that can distinguish features down to 2.5 metres across. They will directly generate three-dimensional maps that have until now been achievable only indirectly, by combining data from a large number of satellite passes over the same place. "Such a stereographic imaging system does not exist in the civil sector anywhere else," says Mr Nair, chairman of the Bangalore-based Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). "It will give information about heights that will be very useful in applications such as planning power lines." Cartosat-1 will join what is already the world's largest cluster of non-military remote sensing satellites. Six Indian spacecraft are already observing the earth with a wide range of instruments."

2 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Not first stereographic, but first hi-res stereo by Dominic_Mazzoni · · Score: 4, Informative

    This isn't the first stereographic satellite that's accessible to the general public; that would be MISR - NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer, built by JPL, with nine cameras pointed in different directions along its direction of travel in polar orbit, ranging from nadir (straight down) to 70 degrees in either direction. Compared to India's new high-resolution satellite, MISR seems very low resolution - 275 meters per pixel - however, it covers the entire surface of the Earth every few days and all of the data is available for free at this resolution, while India's satellite is "targeting"; it only images a particular area when it is programmed to do so. MISR is used primarily to study clouds and aerosols.

    To see some 3-D images taken by MISR or some animations of its 9 cameras' views of different scenes, check out their gallery.

  2. Re:All this... by peacelife · · Score: 4, Informative
    No, the taxes are not that high - the highest income tax slab is slightly higher than 30%. The cost of living is much lower in India than in the US, so unless you factor that in, any assumptions/comparisons you make are likely to be wrong. But you have got me thinking about the military expenditures of both the countries. The Bush administration is asking for about $419 billion for its military. That is a truly humungous amount. What do you do with it? That alone is half the global military spending!

    And a nitpick which will hopefully bring this post back on topic - the average literacy you mentioned is wrong. It is 64.8% according to the 2001 census. The number you gave was for 1991. 14 years can make a lot of difference in a country like India, even given its huge population.