India will get sharper eyes to track ravaging cyclones and forecast monsoon when the Indian Space Reserach Organisation launches the indigenously built INSAT-3D and Oceansat-2 satellites next year.
"The INSAT-3D satellite will be one of the three weather satellites that ISRO will launch in the next couple of years," said Abhijit Sarkar, a scientist at the Space Applications Centre at ISRO.
"The three weather satellites will improve weather forecasts and will keep a track of phenomena like cyclones and monsoon," he told PTI recently, adding that INSAT-3D will be a geo-stationary satellite that will be launched in 2008.
"INSAT-3D will carry two sensors: a high resolution radiometer, which will monitor rainfall, sea surface temperature and cloud movements and a sounder, which will give profiles of temperature and humidity. This satellite will do the all-important tracking of cyclones that emerge from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea," Sarkar remarked.
Geostationary satellites orbit the Earth's equatorial plane at a height of 38,500 km. At this height, the satellite's orbit matches the rotation of the Earth, so the satellite seems to stay stationary over the same point on the equator.
This is ideal for making regular observations of cloud patterns and helps in detecting formation of cyclones, Sarkar explained.
"The INSAT-3D will also help in monitoring the path the cyclones might take and thereby predict the time and place of the land-fall (place where the cyclone hits land) of the tropical cyclone. This will help in issuing warnings and carry out timely evacuation before catastrophe strikes," he said.
Apart from the INSAT-3D, ISRO will also launch the indigenously built Ocensat-2 in 2008, which will play an important role in forecasting the onset of monsoon and its subsequent advancement over the Indian peninsula, he added.
"This statellite will have a Ocean Colour Monitor, which will help identify potential areas for fishery. It will also carry radar scatterometer, which will measure the sea surface level winds," Sarkar said.
"Through the measurement of these winds, the condition of the sea can be predicted which will help ships navigating through the region," he explained.
The third weather satellite called the 'Megha-Tropiques' is an Indo-French collaborative effort and will be launched in 2009 using a spacecraft built by ISRO, Sarkar said.
"Though the satellite is Indian, a large portion of the sensors have been built by the French National Space Centre," he said.
"Megha-Tropiques (Megha meaning cloud in Sanskrit and Tropiques meaning tropics in French) is a polar-orbiting satellite dedicated to atmospheric research. It will also track systems, which will give rain and collect climate-related information," Sarkar added.
