Indian Space Research Organisation

India's national space agency, established in 1969 under the Department of Space and reporting to the Prime Minister. Headquartered in Bengaluru at Antariksh Bhavan, ISRO employs approximately 14,637 staff (March 2026) across its network of centres including the Space Applications Centre (SAC), National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC/UR Rao Satellite Centre), and launch complex at Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.^[1]

ISRO's Earth observation portfolio spans optical and radar imaging at scales from sub-metre to regional. The Cartosat series provides very high resolution optical coverage: Cartosat-3 (2019) operates a 0.25 m panchromatic and 1 m multispectral camera with a 16 km swath from 509 km SSO, enabling detailed infrastructure and urban mapping.^[2] The Resourcesat series sustains medium-resolution multi-scale coverage for agriculture and land use: the current satellite, Resourcesat-2A (2016), carries LISS-4 at 5.8 m, LISS-3 at 23.5 m, and AWiFS at 56 m, all in VNIR and SWIR bands.^[3][4] RISAT-2B (2019) and EOS-04 (2022) provide C- and X-band SAR capability for all-weather surface and soil moisture observation.^[5][6] HySIS (2018) delivers 60-band VNIR and 256-band SWIR hyperspectral data at 30 m resolution.^[7] Ocean colour, wind vectors, and sea surface temperature are measured by the Oceansat series; EOS-06 (Oceansat-3, 2022) carries OCM-3, OSCAT-3, and SSTM instruments.^[8] NISAR (2025), a joint mission with NASA, carries dual L- and S-band SAR at 5-10 m resolution with all data freely released within two days of acquisition.^[9]

Launch services are built around the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), which has achieved 58 successful flights out of 63 attempts and has placed 360 foreign satellites from 36 countries into orbit (as of December 2024).^[10] The GSLV Mk II serves medium-to-geostationary payloads (2,500 kg to GTO); LVM3 is India's heaviest operational rocket. SSLV provides small satellite launch services.^[11][1] Commercial operations are channelled through two government entities: NewSpace India Limited (NSIL, incorporated 2019), which manages commercial launch contracts and satellite services, and Antrix Corporation (established 1992), ISRO's original international marketing arm.^[12][13] EO data access is provided through the Bhuvan geospatial portal, operated by NRSC, for visualisation of IRS imagery.^[14]