Space Applications Centre


DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE

		It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Space Applications Centre's (SAC) website. I hope you shall find it interesting and informative. SAC, one of the major Centres of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was established in 1973 by amalgamating several theme based units of ISRO in Ahmedabad - first such unit having been established as Experimental Satellite Communications Earth Station (ESCES), in 1967. SAC is engaged in design and development of earth observation sensors in optical, IR and microwave regions of the EM spectrum for survey of natural resources, and ocean and atmospheric studies; transponders for telecommunications, TV and radio broadcasting and related ground hardware.The Centre is also deeply engaged in harnessing space technology for societal benefits like food security, rural development, education and literacy, health care and environment, survey and optimum use of natural resources and disaster monitoring and mitigation related activities. In this direction it has come a long way in developing earth observation sensors starting with Bhaskara-I with 1 km resolution
to the recent state of the art sensors with 1m resolution and stereoscopic imaging capabilities. It is developing microwave sensors with all weather and day and night capabilities. Through launches of satellites in IRS-1 series, RESOURCESAT-1, CARTO-1 and 2, Kalpana, etc., SAC has acquired capability to realise state of the art sensors. Data from these satellites is being used in collaboration with several user agencies in the areas of crop acreage and yield assessments, forestry, monitoring of glaciers, land use planning, coastal zone regulation, fisheries, deriving parameters related to sea and atmosphere for meteorological forecasts and for disaster monitoring. In the field of communication transponders, SAC has acquired capabilities in developing and realising communication transponders in C, Ku and Ka bands with spot beam, national beam and configurable beam capabilities. It all started with developing the first experimental communication satellite APPLE in seventies which was followed by procured and custom designed INSAT-1 series, INSAT-2, INSAT-3 and INSAT-4 series - all designed in house, but launched through hired launches. The design of new communication transponders is aimed at providing additional capabilities for tele-education, tele-health, regional navigation system, mobile and distress alerts' communication, DTH, digital sound broadcasting, etc. - all of these to be launched through indigenous launches. We also look forward to developing sensors with higher spatial and spectral resolutions, imagers and sounders for vertical profiling of atmosphere, more versatile microwave sensors for monitoring sea, atmosphere and other resources, for inter-planetary missions like Chandrayaan and for developing advanced and more versatile image processing and data utilisation techniques. An important aspect of all these would be to indigenise the technology and efforts. (R. R. Navalgund)