HysIS specs: Guardian in the sky against all mines and bad crop
More than 3,700 people including military personnel have died stepping on landmines in India in the past 17 years. But the fear of a mine shall no longer pose a threat to the country. Our guardian in the sky, the HysIS satellite will ensure that.
India’s new earth observation satellite HysIS (Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite) was launched a PSLV. It will do the job of mine mapping without any risk to human or animal life. All of this will happen from an altitude of more than 600 km in space. Its cameras can detect tyre tracks on mud and snow! It can differentiate healthy crops from dead ones, spot various minerals at once and locate water streams underneath a thick canopy of trees. This satellite is more versatile than Kishore Kumar on musical steroids.
Professor Uday K Khankhoje is from the department of electrical engineering in IIT Madras. He said, “Hyperspectral cameras with near infrared and shortwave infrared capability can penetrate through soil for up to 5 cm, depending on the soil type. It is, however, not as good as a radar that can penetrate deeper sending wave energy.”
The HysIS camera will work on a visible and near infrared band. It will have a wavelength between 400 and 1400 nanometers (nm) and the shortwave infrared falling roughly between 1400 and 3000 nm. That’s the potential of the guardian in the sky.
HysIS is better than all existing Indian earth observations combined. It gives finer details of the objects it observes. Former ISRO chairman, A S Kiran Kumar said, “The human eye can see only in a combination of red, green and blue. Hyperspectral imagers can see and capture an array of colours present in between any two colours in the electromagnetic spectrum.”
The new guardian in the sky, HysIS will surely save many lives; both directly and indirectly.
