New Delhi. 1st May, 2008 was May Day but for India, it was also the day when its satellite-based overhead reconnaissance and space delivery capabilities were successfully boosted to match the better ones in the world.
This was the day when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed in orbit India’s first dedicated reconnaissance cum operational military-specific satellite, Cartosat 2A with a spot .8 meter resolution facility with a small swath from its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C9 at a height of 637 kms, along with nine other satellites.
The multiple pictures from Cartosat 2A can be stored in a digital chip recorder and transmitted when line of sight is matched with India’s earth station receivers, and passed on to the Defence Imagery Interpretation Centre (DIPAC)’s various locations for real time intelligence analysis.
The PSLV is a four-stage rocket launcher that weighs 230 tonnes at lift-off, and on 1st May, ISRO in its 11th out of 12 successful launches, pushed out 10 satellites including the 1,000 kg Cartosat 2A in to perfect orbit, with a 4 day revisit capability.
This can be reduced with command orders if needed.
The satellite and ground control stations immediately began working to plan, and panchromatic area and spot specific cameras on board began beaming down digital pictures with clarity.
At a ceremony in New Delhi soon after, which was made public, a picture of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s sprawling Race Course Road well guarded citadel type residence cum office was presented to him by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair, depicting minutest details.
Such imagery is widely used for intelligence and digital target mapping by missiles and aircraft, and also for multiple civilian requirements, including planning and mapping metro and road routes in cities.
ISRO functions independent of the Minstry of Defence, but indeed, the three services and India’s intelligence organizations are its clients. They pay for the services given to them, and ISRO is also in the international market for satellite launch of other countries.
According to declared details, the resolution capability of Carosat 2A is exceeded only by America’s Quickbird and a few others whose capabilities are kept secret, as is the case for most military satellites.
Cartosat 2A is apparently a dual use satellite, so only some of its capabilities have been made public.
To ensure full interpretation of the digital data, world class desk top analysis systems are reported to be functioning in DIPAC which is manned and tasked by the Armed Forces for 24 x 7 intelligence analyses. DIPAC is the expert agency that can also set the aperture and areas that are targeted for intelligence required by the Armed Forces, to enable tasking.
India’s also buys imagery from foreign satellite companies, much of which is open but useful. That is a practice that most countries have in fact adopted as the need for invasive intelligence through supersonic aircraft like Mig 25 and SR 71 has come to the minimal possible.
All the three Armed Forces’ intelligence agencies and India’s external spying agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), have dedicated desk top satellite imagery analysis systems. They are definitely more alert after the 1999 Kargil war which was triggered by the infiltration and occupation of Indian territory by Pakistani troops.
While a requirement for purchasing satellite data would continue to be there for a long time to come, India’s homegrown satellites like Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2 would inspire confidence and a sense of self-sufficiency.
There is however duplication and multiplicity of agencies with overlapping responsibilities. That can create problems, and that can also help in getting assessments from different perspectives. That also triggers the need for coordination and a kind of centralized assessment authority.
There is often some talk for an Intelligence Czar, who would report to the National Security Advisor (NSA) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and of course, the Prime Minister.
Besides the armed forces with their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and RAW, there is also the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), set up by the legendary R S Bedi, who headed RAW’s Aviation Research Centre (ARC).
The NSA in fact is like a Minister of State with a large Secretariat and two Deputy National Security Advisors (DNSAs) and several retired high-ranking officers and experts, some of them on contract.
The pivotal post of Chairman of the Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation in the National Security Council is held by retired Rear Admiral Raja Menon, who has spent long stints in US think tanks like Sandia.
Sandia National Laboratories has developed science-based technologies that support USA’s national security, and today as per the laboratory’s masthead, the 300+plus million Americans depend on Sandia's technology solutions to solve national and global threats to peace and freedom.
Today in India also, the intelligence agencies are all reasonably resource-rich organizations, which lean more and more on satellite data for snooping, planning, and prosecuting threats and this will help net assessment and to compute national power, and simulate security scenarios, to be played out to infer out comes.
Notably, after the exit of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989, the successor government virtually stopped funding for the evolution of armed forces and the intelligence organizations. The process restarted more than a decade later after the 1999 Kargil War, thanks to the Pakistani misadventure.
India is now following the US models to simulate table top security exercises and even foreign militaries have been invited. The outcomes help politico military planning.
This time around Cartosat 2A can beam signals back in real time, including minutely detailed digital spatial photographs taken from sensitive panchromatic cameras.
Only thick cloud cover or total darkness will dissuade such activity.
This was the lacuna and orbital data that India’s scientists exploited in the case of US and Russian satellites in May 1998, when no foreign satellite or intelligence agency was able to detect India’s hectic preparations for the Pokhran-II Shakti series of nuclear blasts, ordered in stealth by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The world’s intelligence agencies were taken by surprise.
India’s nuclear scientists Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Mr R Chidambaram and Mr K Santhanam masqueraded as mid-level army officers – whose movement is routine in the area – successfully carried out transportation of cores with triggers and devices and planted them in deep tunnels at Pokhran during interludes of cloud cover or pitch darkness.
Dedicated Army Engineers, from No 58 unit, were sworn to secrecy and they maintained their trust.
Future Indian military satellites will include dedicated military communication and intelligence satellites and will be fitted out with multi spectral scanners and radars. At present, the Indian military leases nodes on INSAT satellites for communications.
It is also significant to note that earlier on 21st January 2008, a core alone Indian PSLV launched an Israeli Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, called TecSAR, and also Polaris. Although it was under a commercial launch arrangement with Antrix, ISRO’s international arm in the launch market, the launch itself gave ISRO valuable experience.
TecSAR, which can look through the clouds and darkness, is operated by Israel as India was involved only in its launch. The Israelis changed the software codes once they took over its command.
Real time imagery through clouds and darkness is important even over the sea, particularly for the Indian Navy which is looking for the Oceansat series to ensure that the armed forces are net centrically wired for operations.
Although the Indian Air Force (IAF), Army and Navy have their individual requirements, they all realize the need for coordination and sharing intelligence data.
It was therefore timely that the Centre of Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), set up a few years ago to serve as the Army’s Premier Think Tank, held a milestone seminar on June 16 on ‘Indian Military And Space.’
The event was well-attended by serving and retired officers and civilians with expertise and those dealing in space including representatives from ISRO, and even the media.
Notably, as ISRO has maintained a distance from the armed forces, its representatives pointed out that they were attending the seminar but in their personal capacities to understand the turn of events.
Indian space assets, whether military of civilian, were facing a threat from China which had demonstrated the anti satellite (ASAT) capability, Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Kapoor observed at the seminar. He strongly urged that the Indian forces should be able to defend their space assets and overcome any threats, particularly as the Army as well as the IAF and Navy would depend a lot on satellite communications even in peacetime.
This was the day when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed in orbit India’s first dedicated reconnaissance cum operational military-specific satellite, Cartosat 2A with a spot .8 meter resolution facility with a small swath from its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C9 at a height of 637 kms, along with nine other satellites.
The multiple pictures from Cartosat 2A can be stored in a digital chip recorder and transmitted when line of sight is matched with India’s earth station receivers, and passed on to the Defence Imagery Interpretation Centre (DIPAC)’s various locations for real time intelligence analysis.
The PSLV is a four-stage rocket launcher that weighs 230 tonnes at lift-off, and on 1st May, ISRO in its 11th out of 12 successful launches, pushed out 10 satellites including the 1,000 kg Cartosat 2A in to perfect orbit, with a 4 day revisit capability.
This can be reduced with command orders if needed.
The satellite and ground control stations immediately began working to plan, and panchromatic area and spot specific cameras on board began beaming down digital pictures with clarity.
At a ceremony in New Delhi soon after, which was made public, a picture of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s sprawling Race Course Road well guarded citadel type residence cum office was presented to him by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair, depicting minutest details.
Such imagery is widely used for intelligence and digital target mapping by missiles and aircraft, and also for multiple civilian requirements, including planning and mapping metro and road routes in cities.
ISRO functions independent of the Minstry of Defence, but indeed, the three services and India’s intelligence organizations are its clients. They pay for the services given to them, and ISRO is also in the international market for satellite launch of other countries.
According to declared details, the resolution capability of Carosat 2A is exceeded only by America’s Quickbird and a few others whose capabilities are kept secret, as is the case for most military satellites.
Cartosat 2A is apparently a dual use satellite, so only some of its capabilities have been made public.
To ensure full interpretation of the digital data, world class desk top analysis systems are reported to be functioning in DIPAC which is manned and tasked by the Armed Forces for 24 x 7 intelligence analyses. DIPAC is the expert agency that can also set the aperture and areas that are targeted for intelligence required by the Armed Forces, to enable tasking.
India’s also buys imagery from foreign satellite companies, much of which is open but useful. That is a practice that most countries have in fact adopted as the need for invasive intelligence through supersonic aircraft like Mig 25 and SR 71 has come to the minimal possible.
All the three Armed Forces’ intelligence agencies and India’s external spying agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), have dedicated desk top satellite imagery analysis systems. They are definitely more alert after the 1999 Kargil war which was triggered by the infiltration and occupation of Indian territory by Pakistani troops.
While a requirement for purchasing satellite data would continue to be there for a long time to come, India’s homegrown satellites like Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2 would inspire confidence and a sense of self-sufficiency.
There is however duplication and multiplicity of agencies with overlapping responsibilities. That can create problems, and that can also help in getting assessments from different perspectives. That also triggers the need for coordination and a kind of centralized assessment authority.
There is often some talk for an Intelligence Czar, who would report to the National Security Advisor (NSA) in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and of course, the Prime Minister.
Besides the armed forces with their Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and RAW, there is also the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), set up by the legendary R S Bedi, who headed RAW’s Aviation Research Centre (ARC).
The NSA in fact is like a Minister of State with a large Secretariat and two Deputy National Security Advisors (DNSAs) and several retired high-ranking officers and experts, some of them on contract.
The pivotal post of Chairman of the Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation in the National Security Council is held by retired Rear Admiral Raja Menon, who has spent long stints in US think tanks like Sandia.
Sandia National Laboratories has developed science-based technologies that support USA’s national security, and today as per the laboratory’s masthead, the 300+plus million Americans depend on Sandia's technology solutions to solve national and global threats to peace and freedom.
Today in India also, the intelligence agencies are all reasonably resource-rich organizations, which lean more and more on satellite data for snooping, planning, and prosecuting threats and this will help net assessment and to compute national power, and simulate security scenarios, to be played out to infer out comes.
Notably, after the exit of the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1989, the successor government virtually stopped funding for the evolution of armed forces and the intelligence organizations. The process restarted more than a decade later after the 1999 Kargil War, thanks to the Pakistani misadventure.
India is now following the US models to simulate table top security exercises and even foreign militaries have been invited. The outcomes help politico military planning.
This time around Cartosat 2A can beam signals back in real time, including minutely detailed digital spatial photographs taken from sensitive panchromatic cameras.
Only thick cloud cover or total darkness will dissuade such activity.
This was the lacuna and orbital data that India’s scientists exploited in the case of US and Russian satellites in May 1998, when no foreign satellite or intelligence agency was able to detect India’s hectic preparations for the Pokhran-II Shakti series of nuclear blasts, ordered in stealth by the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The world’s intelligence agencies were taken by surprise.
India’s nuclear scientists Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Mr R Chidambaram and Mr K Santhanam masqueraded as mid-level army officers – whose movement is routine in the area – successfully carried out transportation of cores with triggers and devices and planted them in deep tunnels at Pokhran during interludes of cloud cover or pitch darkness.
Dedicated Army Engineers, from No 58 unit, were sworn to secrecy and they maintained their trust.
Future Indian military satellites will include dedicated military communication and intelligence satellites and will be fitted out with multi spectral scanners and radars. At present, the Indian military leases nodes on INSAT satellites for communications.
It is also significant to note that earlier on 21st January 2008, a core alone Indian PSLV launched an Israeli Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, called TecSAR, and also Polaris. Although it was under a commercial launch arrangement with Antrix, ISRO’s international arm in the launch market, the launch itself gave ISRO valuable experience.
TecSAR, which can look through the clouds and darkness, is operated by Israel as India was involved only in its launch. The Israelis changed the software codes once they took over its command.
Real time imagery through clouds and darkness is important even over the sea, particularly for the Indian Navy which is looking for the Oceansat series to ensure that the armed forces are net centrically wired for operations.
Although the Indian Air Force (IAF), Army and Navy have their individual requirements, they all realize the need for coordination and sharing intelligence data.
It was therefore timely that the Centre of Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), set up a few years ago to serve as the Army’s Premier Think Tank, held a milestone seminar on June 16 on ‘Indian Military And Space.’
The event was well-attended by serving and retired officers and civilians with expertise and those dealing in space including representatives from ISRO, and even the media.
Notably, as ISRO has maintained a distance from the armed forces, its representatives pointed out that they were attending the seminar but in their personal capacities to understand the turn of events.
Indian space assets, whether military of civilian, were facing a threat from China which had demonstrated the anti satellite (ASAT) capability, Chief of Army Staff Gen Deepak Kapoor observed at the seminar. He strongly urged that the Indian forces should be able to defend their space assets and overcome any threats, particularly as the Army as well as the IAF and Navy would depend a lot on satellite communications even in peacetime.