India to Launch 50 Satellites in Next 5 Yrs for Geo-Intelligence Gathering: ISRO Chief

Mumbai: India has planned to launch 50 satellites in the next five years for geo-intelligence gathering, said ISRO chairman S Somanath said at `Techfest’ in IIT Bombay on Thursday.

The aim is to form a layer of satellites in different orbits with the capacity to track the movement of troops and image thousands of kilometres of area.

The ISRO chief said, to meet India’s aspiration to become a strong nation, its satellite fleet should be “ten times what we have today”.

Spacecrafts are capable of observing a country’s borders and neighbouring regions, the ISRO chief noted.

“We have already configured 50 satellites to be realised in the next five years and this is going to be launched for India for supporting this particular geo-intelligence capability over the next five years plus (period),” the ISRO chief added.

“We will have communication between satellites so that if some satellite detects something, which is at GEO at 36,000 kms, it can have a large view. If you find some activity happening, you can task another satellite in the lower orbit (to check) much more carefully and then give more information,” he said.

India’s overall satellite fleet at present is 54.