Oceansat-3A likely to be launched by year-end, says NRSC Director

The Oceansat-3A satellite is likely to be launched before the end of this year, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) Director Prakash Chauhan said in Visakhapatnam on Friday. He was speaking after inaugurating the NICES-Coastal Observation Research Laboratory (CORAL) at the Centre for Studies on Bay of Bengal (CSBoB), Andhra University (AU), along with Vice-Chancellor G.P. Raja Sekhar.

The laboratory, set up under an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between AU and the NRSC, will support ISRO’s Oceansat programme. “To support these ocean observations, we also need ground data, which we call ground-truth observations,” Dr. Chauhan said, adding that ISRO has already launched three Oceansat satellites.

According to the university, the NRSC has sanctioned the NICES-CORAL project with funding of about ₹10 crore to ₹12 crore for procuring, installing and maintaining the equipment in a phased manner. The instruments, including a High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) system, FTIR spectrophotometer, flow cytometer, nutrient auto analyser, pCO2 sensor, coulometer, sun photometer and ozonometer, will be used to analyse coastal waters for dissolved inorganic carbon, nutrients, plankton and dissolved oxygen. The project envisages cruises across selected transects of the Bay of Bengal to study ocean-atmosphere and land-sea interactions and their effects on marine ecosystems.

Describing Earth as an “ocean planet”, with seas covering about 70% of its surface, Dr. Chauhan said India’s coastline of over 11,000 km offered a great opportunity for ocean-based development. Advanced laboratories were key to the sustainable use of marine resources and the expansion of the blue economy, he said, adding that fisheries and marine exports could bring benefits worth thousands of crores of rupees to the economy. He assured the Department of Space’s full support for multidisciplinary research, international training programmes and collaboration with foreign scientists through the centre.

Mr. Raja Sekhar said the university was committed to developing CSBoB into a national-level research centre and a “Centre of Excellence” by recruiting staff and project fellows, and said the facility would open research opportunities for students of computer science, engineering, artificial intelligence and machine learning as well.

Mr. Chauhan delivered the Sri Vepa Krishna Murthy Endowment Lecture on “Space Technology of Disaster Risk Reduction in Changing Climate”, in which he said space-based data supports every stage of disaster management, from preparedness to post-disaster damage assessment.

CSBoB Director B.B.V. Sailaja outlined the centre’s progress and the significance of the newly established laboratories, and said the facility would be of great use to oceanographic studies.