ISRO’s latest satellite captures high-resolution images of Pune and Namibia

The Electro Optical-Infrared (EOIR) payload aboard Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s latest Earth Observation Satellite (EOS), commenced its operations successfully, ISRO announced on Thursday.
The EOIR payload successfully captured high-resolution thermal images over Pune city on August 19, 2024 at 7.45am local time– three days after its launch on August 16 – and over the Namibia desert on August 21, 2024, at 11:15am local time.
Stating that further validation is underway to ensure accuracy across various environmental conditions, ISRO mentioned that the ongoing commissioning phase has included initial calibration over a sea target, and early results indicate EOIR payload’s performance in both the Mid-Infrared (MIR) and Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) channels meets the expected standards.
Launched on the third developmental flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), EOIR was one of the three payloads aboard EOS-08. EOIR was designed to capture images both during the day and night, for applications such as satellite-based surveillance, disaster monitoring, environmental monitoring, fire detection, volcanic activity observation, and industrial and power plant disaster monitoring.
Proving its mettle, EOS-08’s EOIR gathered land surface temperature (LST) data over Santiago, Chile. ISRO compared the EOS-08 data on August 24, 2024 at 2.45pm local time with NASA’s Landsat-09’s data, acquired on the same day, 10:33am local time.
“The difference in time between these images resulted in a temperature increase of about 2.5 K, as expected due to diurnal temperature variations. The EOIR payload’s superior resolution at 8 meters spatial accuracy allows for detailed temperature mapping, demonstrating its potential in capturing fine thermal variations,” ISRO mentioned in its website.
The ability to capture detailed temperature variations within urban environments makes the EOIR payload efficient in mapping Urban Heat Islands and effective wildfire detection. “By providing detailed data on soil moisture and vegetation health, the EOIR payload enables optimized water use, improved crop yields, and more efficient farm management,” ISRO mentioned on its website.
Data from the EOIR payload, processed using algorithms and software developed by Space Applications Centre – Indian Space Research Organisation (SAC-ISRO) at the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), is being transformed into actionable insights.