India planning to launch 50 satellites for intelligence gathering in five years: ISRO chief

ISRO to launch 50 satellites in 5 years for geo-intelligence gathering, to track troops & image thousands of km area.

India is aiming to launch 50 satellites in the next five years for geo-intelligence gathering which will include the creation of a layer of satellites in different orbits with a capacity to track the movement of troops and image thousands of kilometres of area, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S. Somanath said here on December 28.

For realising India's aspiration to become a strong nation, the current size of its satellite fleet is not enough and it should be "ten times what we have today", he said, speaking at `Techfest', an annual science and technology event organised by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay here.

It was important to improve the ability of satellites to detect changes, to bring in more of AI-related and data-driven approach to analyse data, reduce data downloads and get only the necessary information, he said.

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

"All of it can be seen from satellites. This capability gives us enormous potential. We have been launching satellites to handle this, but there is a different way of thinking now and we need to look at it in a much more critical manner because the power of (any) nation is the ability to understand what is happening around it," Mr. Somanath said.

Many satellites are being designed and configured, he said.

"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.