India’s first military spy satellite

• India’s first military grade spy satellite manufactured by the domestic private sector player Tata Advanced Systems (TASL), is ready, and has been shipped for launch on a SpaceX rocket.
• Work is also in progress on a ground station that will control the asset and process sub-metre resolution imagery from it.
• The unique aspect of the TASL programme is that the ground control will remain in India, which will enable secrecy of the coordinates that are required to be monitored by the armed forces.
• In the past, exact coordinates and timings for monitoring had to be shared with foreign vendors.
• By the time the satellite is in operational mode, the state-of-the-art ground control centre will be set up in Bengaluru.
• The control centre will direct the satellite’s path and process imagery that can be used by the armed forces to monitor infrastructure and acquire military targets.
• Capable of providing imagery with 0.5-metre spatial resolution, the satellite has been built in partnership with Satellogic — a Latin American company.

With its primary defence role, the satellite imagery can also be exported to friendly countries.