India enters the microsat field

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has developed considerable expertise in launch vehicles and applications satellites. "Our main aim now is to make the satellite systems as compact as possible," Dr S K Sharma of ISRO's Space Applications Centre (SAC) said last fall. He described plans for a new generation of satellites weighing under 100 kg. The first of these is a multispectral imager, TWSAT (Third World Satellite, so called because its imagery is free to developing nations). TWSAT will offer a resolution of about one meter. It's due to launch in late April, with eight Indian and foreign Cubesats riding along. The main payload on the launch is a sophisticated earth-resources bird, Cartosat-2A.