Cartosat-2C To Boost India's Military Space Surveillance

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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

By: The Indian Express

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ISRO’s earth observation satellite Cartosat-2C will be launched in May using a PSLV rocket. It
will prove to be a shot-in-the arm for India’s military surveillance and reconnaissance
capabilities. The launch will help place India in a select league of nations like US, Israel and
China who have similar or better spy satellites that keep a close watch of happenings on Earth
from space.

A couple of weeks ago, the Cartosat-2C — built at Space Applications Centre (SAC) in
Ahmedabad — has been dispatched to ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) at Bengaluru after
successful rounds of tests and evaluation. This brand new satellite follows the steps of Cartosat-
2A which was India’s first dedicated military satellite, launched in 2007, that had the capability
to monitor missile launches in its neighbourhood.
“Though little is known about this new satellite which has been built by scientists at SAC, it will
be a follow-up mission in the Cartosat series and is expected to provide very high resolution
pictures and videos captured from space,” an ISRO official said. -

The 690-kilogram dual-use satellite is equipped with a Panchromatic Camera and a high-
resolution multi-spectral instrument. This camera will have a resolution of 0.65 metres which is
an improvement over the 0.8 metre camera sent on earlier missions. The new camera onboard the
mission, can not only click high resolution pictures of disputed border and coastal areas, but can
also record videos of sensitive targets from space, compress it, and relay it back to Earth.

ISRO officials describe this satellite “as one of the best eyes in space” that India has launched till
date. The strength of the camera installed in this home-grown satellite is almost at par with the
ones possessed by US and China. For instance, in 2014, the Chinese had set a remote sensing
satellite “Yaogan 24” which had a similar camera of 0.65 metre resolution. The panchromatic
imagers can not only be used for surveillance, but can also aid in disaster monitoring. It will also
click images that can give an idea of temperatures of a particular location in comparison with the
surrounding areas. Cartosat-2C is expected to be launched along with 21 other satellites in May
using a PSLV rocket. It will be placed in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at a low-earth altitude of
about 200-1,200 kms above the Earth’s surface.

Agreeing that Indian launch services, owned and controlled by the Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO), threaten to “distort the conditions of competition” in the launch-services
market, the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has
endorsed the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee’s (COMSTAC)
recommendation to continue to bar commercial US satellites from using India’s Polar Satellite
Launch Vehicle (PSLV). India’s refusal to sign a Commercial Space Launch Agreement (CSLA)
on rocket pricing still justifies the ban, the FAA added.

Interestingly, the FAA’s February 26 decision came a day after the US ambassador to India,
Richard Verma, praised the growing US-India cooperation in space at the ORF Kalpana Chawla
Annual Space Policy Dialogue.

“I’m proud that the United States and India have a long and successful history of space
cooperation, beginning in 1963 when India first launched a U.S.-manufactured sounding
rocket – sometimes called a “research rocket” – from Thumba to study the atmosphere above
Earth’s magnetic equator…This early relationship has developed in to a robust partnership
exemplified by scientific exchanges and joint projects…

“In September 2015, for the first time India launched a US satellite… well actually four at
once. The satellites belong to a US company, and India launched them from its trusted
workhorse – the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which has launched satellites for twenty
different countries. Other US companies have sought launches on India’s PSLV, including a
Google satellite scheduled for launch in April. Likewise, many US companies continue to
provide ISRO with satellite technology and components, and Raytheon is playing an important
role in India’s GAGAN navigation system.”

The Ambassador’s February 25 speech and the FAA’s February 26 decision appear to come from
two different governments in America, and shows the lack of integrity as well as the inconsistent
nature of the US policy.

A US industry official, whose company wants the government to maintain a no-license bias with
respect to the PSLV, told Space News:

“There is a real dysfunction on the government side. On the one hand, you have the policy,
which no agency wants to take responsibility for but which remains the policy. On the other,
government agencies are practically falling over themselves to grant waivers.”

The PSLV is designed to launch smaller payload satellites – how is that a threat to the US?

In 2005, the US tried to force India to sign a CSLA to “fix the number of commercial launches it
could perform and the prices it could charge,” in order to “ensure ISRO adhered to market-
oriented practices in the commercial launch sector”. But India didn’t sign the CSLA; for non-
compliance, the US banned the country’s commercial satellite operators from purchasing launch
services from Indian launch companies.

In January 2016, COMSTAC asserted that “allowing India’s state-owned and controlled launch
providers to compete with US companies, runs counter to many national policies and undermines
the work that has been done by government and industry to ensure the health of the US space
launch industrial base.”

If ensuring the health of the US space launch industrial base was the goal, why are US satellite
operators and manufactures complaining about a shortage of launch services in their own
country, and fearing that they will go out of business if they are forced to wait for a reliable and
cost-effective US small satellite launch industry to be created?

Space News has the answer:

The CSLA, dating from 2005, is the US government’s way of protecting the seemingly forever-
nascent US small-satellite launch industry from competing with government-controlled foreign
launchers for US business. It seeks to oblige non-US rocket providers to sign a CSLA that, for all
intents and purposes, sets US commercial launch prices as the world minimum for government-
owned non-US launch providers. The rationale is that these non-US launchers, not bound by the
constraints of profit and loss – but hungry for hard-currency export earnings – will undercut
commercial US companies’ launch prices and keep them from gaining market traction.

ISRO is on a roll

India seems to be undeterred by the US ban. Using its PSLV, India will launch 25 foreign
satellites in 2016-17; 12 of which belong to the USA, the remaining 13 to Germany, Canada,
Algeria, Japan, Indonesia and Malaysia. ISRO’s workhorse Polar rocket PSLV C34 will launch a
record number of 22 satellites, including a number of micro and nano ones from foreign
countries, in a single mission in May. In addition to carrying India’s Cartosat 2C, PSLV C34 will
have 21 other satellites from the US, Canada, Indonesia and Germany. NASA sent 29 satellites
into orbit in a single launch in 2013, setting a world record.

In March 2016, Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, told the Upper
House of India’s parliament that in the last three years, from January 2013 till December 2015,
the ISRO has launched 28 foreign satellites – 7 of Singapore, 6 of UK, 5 of Canada, 4 of the US,
2 of Austria and 1 each of Denmark, France, Germany and Indonesia. Antrix Corporation, the
commercial arm of ISRO, which negotiates commercial launch agreements on behalf of the
Indian government, earned revenue of 80.6 million Euros through launching of these 28
international customer satellites, he disclosed.