Risat 1 Lanched by India Successfully on 26 April 2012 at Sriharikota .

It’s hardly a week after India’s DRDO had test fired Nuclear capable Agni V, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has now successfully launched spy satellite Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-1. The rocket PSLV burst off the launch-pads of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India on its space mission of placing indigenously developed RISAT-1 in apolar circular orbit. The RISAT-1 with a payload of 1858 kg, the heaviest satellite being launched yet by the PSLV, is a state-of-the-art Active Microwave Remote Sensing Satellite carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload that will operate in the C-band. In simpler terms, the RISAT-1 can beam back imaging of the earth surface features during day and night and under all imagined weather conditions. The SAR which gives the RISAT-1 its magic lens also makes it superior to the generation of optical remote sensing satellites in terms of clearer imaging at all times and under any condition. With 11 remote sensing/earth observation satellites orbiting in the space, India is a world leader in the remote sensing data market. The PSLV's four stages were fuelled with solid and liquid propellants. The first and third stages are fuelled by solid fuel while the second and fourth stages are powered by liquid fuel.

Here are the top 10 facts on RISAT-1:

• Weighing at 1848 Kg, RISAT-1 is the heaviest satellite ever launched by PSLV Lunch vehicle.
• On lift off, it weighs 321 tons rocket, the most powerful Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL).
• This is the third time that ISRO is using a PSLV-XL (Extra Large) rocket. It was first used in October 2008 to put Chandrayaan-1(PSLV C 11) in orbit and again in July 2011 during the communication satellite GSAT-12 (PSLV C17) launch.
• The indigenously made satellite has day and night viewing capacity and will not be blinded by cloud cover.
• RISAT-1 will help in crop monitoring and flood forecasting.
• The satellite carries a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload, operating in a multi-polarization and multi-resolution mode to provide images with coarse, fine and high spatial resolutions. It has a best resolution of up to 1 m.
• It has taken ISRO 10 years to make this sophisticated satellite. So far PSLV has consecutive 19 successful launches.
• The project Director N Valarmathi, is the first woman to head a remote sensing satellite project, and the second to be the satellite project director at ISRO.
• Apart from RISAT-1, India already has another spy satellite RISAT-2 acquired from Israel which was launched in 2009.