WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2001
India puts its first spy in sky
MANOJ JOSHI
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
NEW DELHI: The Americans did it twice in the past month, the Russians once, and now the Indians have joined them. In October, all three countries have sent a spy satellite into space. Being a first for India, the Technology Experiment Satellite, TES, sent up on Monday aloft a Polar Space Launch Vehicle from Sriharikota was so much more creditable. ISRO officials declined to comment on the satellite's military application, though ISRO chief K Kasturirangan is reported to have said, ``It will be for civilian use, consistent with our security concerns.'' Officially, ISRO says it is an experimental satellite to demonstrate and validate technologies that could be used in the future satellites. But satellites are rarely made in prototype form, and insiders say that TES's panchromatic cameras will provide imagery with one metre resolution which has clear military implications. Its substantial 1.1-tonne weight is a pointer to its serious intent since it implies a greater payload and fuel capacity. Like the American and Russian launches, the TES launch had little to do with the September 11 event since the launch was scheduled earlier. K Santhanam, director of the Delhi-based Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, says the launch is a ``significant step'' since such ``strategic technologies fall in the do-it-yourself category''. This is evident from Pakistan's aborted efforts to get the Russians to fabricate a similar satellite for $130 million. The TES programme was accelerated in the aftermath of the criticism faced by the government over its surveillance capabilities. Indian remote imaging satellites of the IRS series have a resolution of 5.8m which is not useful from the military standpoint. While they can detect large aircraft on the ground, TES would be able to pick up a group of militants marching single-file or even prepared defences on a mountain redoubt. The satellite has a sun-synchronous orbit, which means it will visit the same area at the same local time repeatedly. This enables it to map changes, which is what spy satellites are all about. Military imaging has four stages detection, identification, recognition and description. TES has the capability to easily undertake the first three in relation to tanks and vehicles. But India requires cameras of sharper resolution to analyse whether or not, for example, the tanks have modified guns of a higher calibre or the personnel on the ground are regular army or mujahideen. This can only be done by American and Russian satellites with resolutions as fine as 2 cm. In that scale TES is puny, but it does mark the beginning of India's effort to seek the military high ground of outer space.
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