Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday released the first image taken by INSAT-3DR, an advanced meteorological satellite launched last week.
INSAT-3DR imager has perfectly captured the image of the Earth disk with the Moon at the bottom. The image was widely shared on Twitter after ISRO shared it on the social networking site on Thursday. The images of Earth also has Moon in the background.
The weather satellite has been configured with an imaging system and an atmospheric sounder, was launched on September 8, 2016, using its GSLV-F05 from the spaceport of Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The rocket, GSLV-F05 has injected the satellite into the geostationary transfer orbit. It took another two days for the satellite to reach its final geostationary orbit after scientists fired its onboard thrusters.
The satellite multi-spectral imager can capture images of the Earth disk from an altitude of 36,000km once in every 26 minutes. It can provide information on various parameters like radiation, precipitation, sea surface temperature, snow cover, cloud motion winds. Images can be captured in six wavelength bands.
An atmospheric sounder on-board the satellite gives information on temperature, humidity and integrated ozone. There are also two transponders — one for relaying data from automatic weather stations and rain gauges and the other for search and rescue purposes.
Like its predecessor INSAT-3D, INSAT-3DR carries a Data Relay Transponder as well as a Search and Rescue Transponder. Thus, INSAT-3DR will provide service continuity to earlier meteorological missions of ISRO and further augment the capability to provide various meteorological as well as search and rescue services.
Video from onboard camera of GSLV-F05https://t.co/yUR8ap4LHk pic.twitter.com/5u6vjbHABE
— ISRO (@isro) September 15, 2016
ISRO has also released a video of the GSLV-F05 launch which was captured by a camera onboard the rocket.