What are the salient features of IRS-P5 ?

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IRS-P5, or Cartosat-1, is an ISRO cartography satellite in a 618 km sun-synchronous orbit carrying two panchromatic cameras of 2.5 m resolution that capture same-pass stereo images over a 30 km swath. Launched on 5 May 2005 by PSLV-C6 from Sriharikota, it produced the national CartoDEM.

**Introduction**

IRS-P5, also called ==Cartosat-1==, is an ISRO remote sensing satellite built for cartography. It was launched on 5 May 2005 by PSLV-C6 from ==Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh== and was India's first satellite able to take stereo images of the same area in a single pass. Its purpose was to give India accurate, large-scale maps and terrain models of its own.

**Orbit and Platform**

1. **Orbit**: It moves in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at about ==618 km==, passing over each place at about the same local time and so giving uniform lighting for mapping.
2. **Platform**: The satellite weighed about 1,560 kg, was launched along with HAMSAT and had a design life of about five years.
3. **Revisit**: Steerable viewing gave a revisit of about 5 days over an area, useful for quick follow-up imaging.

**Payload**

1. **Twin PAN cameras**: PAN-Fore and PAN-Aft cameras, tilted at about +26 and -5 degrees, view the same ground from two angles within seconds to create ==along-track stereo== pairs, avoiding errors from changing season or light.
2. **Resolution and swath**: Each camera has about ==2.5 metre== resolution, enough to see buildings, roads and field boundaries, and a swath of about 30 km for fast coverage.
3. **Storage**: A solid state recorder holds images until they can be sent to ground stations.

**Applications**

1. **Mapping and DEMs**: Its data is used for 1:25,000 scale topographic maps, contours and the national ==CartoDEM==.
2. **Planning**: It supports urban planning, road and canal alignment, watershed and flood studies, and project planning in states like Andhra Pradesh.
3. **Resources and disasters**: It helps in land records, forest and mining monitoring, and disaster damage assessment.

**Significance**

1. **Self-reliance**: It reduced dependence on foreign high-resolution imagery for national mapping.
2. **Later missions**: It led to the Cartosat-2 series and Cartosat-3 with much finer resolution, and its data is used by state centres such as the Andhra Pradesh Space Applications Centre.

**Conclusion**

Cartosat-1 gave India its own high-resolution stereo mapping capability and laid the base for the Cartosat series, making space data a routine tool for national and state planning.

What are the salient features of IRS-P5 ?

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