India Launches World's First Stereo Imaging Satellite

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."

Comments

In other news....

[jesseraf]

The satellite will be permanently pointed at Pakistan.

Re:India is 45 years late to the party

[theskeptic]

Frankly, this isn't a novel thing. Other than the 2m resolution, the corona spy satellite had stereophonic cameras in 1960.
Wow, India is late to the party by 45 years and the article submitter makes it sound as if its _the_ innovation of the year. Bah.

How will this help the people?

[Swift Kick]

I'm kinda disappointed and surprised by this.

Here we have a country that (according to the UN) holds 50% of the world's hungry:

"Nearly 50 percent of the world's hungry live in India, a low-income, food-deficit country. Around 35 percent of India's population - 350 million - are considered food-insecure, consuming less than 80 percent of minimum energy requirements.

Nutritional and health indicators are extremely low. Nearly nine out of 10 pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from malnutrition and anaemia. Anaemia in pregnant women causes 20 percent of infant mortality. More than half of the children under five are moderately or severely malnourished, or suffer from stunting."

This is straight out of the UN Food Program webpage (http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/indexcountry.asp ?country=356).

So, they put this satellite up for what? To better see their people starving ?

Re:Tech support...

[coopex]

You need to learn to use a dictionary

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=off-shore offshore: Of or relating to a financial organization whose headquarters lies outside the United States. Although offshore institutions must abide by U.S. regulations for operations carried on within the U.S., other activities generally escape domestic regulation.

Gee, some words have more than two meanings, and context clues tell you what the person is saying.