India looks stunning from space in new images beamed by Isro’s Oceansat-3

The satellite has been providing continuity of ocean colour and wind vector data to sustain the operational applications.

The Earth Observation Satellite (EOS-06) also known as Oceansat-3 has beamed back new images of the planet using the onboard Ocean Colour Monitor. The images are a mosaic generated by Isro’s National Remote Sensing Center (NRSC) in Hyderabad from data beamed back by the spacecraft.

The Earth Observation Satellite-06 is the third-generation satellite in the Oceansat series and is designed to provide continuity services of Oceansat-2 spacecraft with enhanced payload specifications as well as application areas.

Oceansat-3 was launched with three major instruments Ocean Color Monitor (OCM-3), Sea Surface Temperature Monitor (SSTM), Ku-Band Scatterometer (SCAT-3), and ARGOS. The Ocean Color Monitor senses the Earth in 13 distinct wavelengths to provide information about global vegetation cover on land and ocean biota for global oceans.

The satellite has been providing continuity of ocean colour and wind vector data to sustain the operational applications, improve the applications, and information around sea surface temperature and more bands in the optical region.

The EOS-06 mission was launched on the PSLV-C54 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in 2022. Oceansat-3 captured Cyclone Mandous in December 2022 and the OCM onboard EOS-06 identified algae (coccolithophore) bloom off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic Ocean.

The Oceansat series of satellites are used for earth observation and monitoring water bodies. The first Oceansat was launched in a Polar Sun Synchronous orbit nearly 720 kilometers above Earth in 1999. Oceansat-2 had blasted off onboard the PSLV-C14 mission in 2009.