In a first, Army uses Cartosat images for surgical strikes along the LoC

NEW DELHI: On Thursday, the Army conducted surgical strikes along the Line of Control (LoC) to eliminate terror launchpads in the POK, the ground images for which were provided by Cartosat 2C satellite.

This was the first major use of the recently-launched satellite of the Cartosat family, better known as India's 'eye in the sky'. These are earth observation satellites with a camera that can take black-and-white images of 'area of interest'.

While the first Cartosat was launched in 2005, Cartosat-2A, launched in 2007, was the first dual-use satellite with capabilities of monitoring missile launches in India's neighbourhood.

And, the Cartosat-2C is the best in the class that India boasts of although countries like the US and Israel boast of better ones. This satellite can not only click pictures of areas of interest, but also record videos of sensitive targets from space, compress it, and relay it back to earth.

The Cartosat-2C in particular added more teeth to India's military surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, and has been providing high resolution images of 0.65 metres, an improvement over the 0.8m resolution of the earlier missions.