PM hosts lunch for space scientists

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday hosted lunch for space scientists after the successful launch of an imaging satellite Cartosat-2B last week.

A team of 15 space scientists, led by ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan, ISRO scientific secretary V S Hegde and Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre director S Ramakrishnan, met Singh at his official residence.

Singh congratulated them for the successful launch of Cartosat-2B and four auxiliary satellites on July 12 by the 16th consecutive flight of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The scientists presented the prime minister with a replica of the PSLV rocket and pictures taken by the state-of-the-art panchromatic camera onboard the Cartosat-2B satellite.

The camera takes black-and-white pictures in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The imagery has a spatial resolution of 0.8 metre. The camera covers a swath (geographical strip of land) which is 9.6 km wide.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon was also present.