OceanSat II to aid Sea Fishing

ISRO is planning to launch it’s second in OceanSat series this year. OceanSat  II is more advanced than OceanSat I which was launched into space in 1999. ISRO is also planning to launch a number of satellites to help agriculture also.

The OceanSat-II will have two instruments – ocean colour monitor and scatterometre. The ocean colour monitor would detect the colour of the ocean indicated by phytoplankton (marine organisms including fishes). This information will aid in fishing. The scatterometre will study the interaction between ocean and atmosphere, sea surface temperature, wave height and this information will help the weathermen in forecasting the weather.

The OceanSat-I also has an instrument for monitoring ocean colour and a multi-frequency scanning microwave. The OceanSat-I has been giving information for aiding fishing in the sea fishing zones.

Isro also has plans to launch Insat-3D for monitoring meteorological data, G-SAT-4 for communication facility with experimental navigation payload, Insat-4D with communication facility with transponders and ResourceSat for remote sensing. All these satellites would be launched with the help of indigenous polar satellite launch vehicles (PSLVs).

Satellites for accessing meteorological data and remote sensing will help agriculture as meteorological data are effective tool for weather prediction and crop production and crop production and soil and water conditions can be monitored through remote sensing. ISRO had earlier launched remote sensing satellites and remote sensing operations have been able to estimate crop production particularly that of wheat and rice to near accuracy.

ISRO also has plan to launch AstroSat for gathering astronomical information and MeghaTropics with French collaboration for tropical atmospheric studies within a year.