IRS-1A

IRS-1A, Indian Remote Sensing satellite-1A, the first of the series of indigenous state-of-art remote sensing satellites, was successfully launched into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit on 17 March 1988 from the Soviet Cosmodrome at Baikonur. IRS-1A carries two sensors, LISS-1 and LISS-2, with resolutions of and respectively with a swath width of about during each pass over the country. Undertaken by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It was a part-operational, part-experimental mission to develop Indian expertise in satellite imagery.

== History == The availability of Landsat imagery created a lot of interest in the science community. The Hyderabad ground station started receiving Landsat data on a regular basis in 1978. The Landsat program with its design and potentials was certainly a great model and yardstick for the IRS programme. IRS-1A was the first remote sensing mission to provide imagery for various land-based applications, such as agriculture, forestry, geology, and hydrology. The mission's long-term objective was to develop indigenous remote sensing capability.