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The chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation Madhavan Nair and executives from the Foreign Agricultural Services of the US Department of Agriculture met on 8 April at the Indian Embassy in Washington to dicuss the US’ need for space-based sensors.

The FAS has the primary responsibility for the Department's international activities. Its purpose is to provide unbiased commodity estimates and forecasts to create a marketing edge for US producers in world markets.

The meeting was organised by ARSC, a geospatial consultancy that works widely with US government agencies.

The Department uses a wide range of satellites from many organisations, including ISRO's Resourcesat-P6. P6 is one of the most widely used satellites in the Indian Remoste Sensing series. Apart from USDA, it is also used by Geoscience Australia. Distrbution in Europe is via the German Space Agency's subsidiary Euromap GmbH.

The meeting was part of early Indian attempts to firm up the design for the sensors on Resourcesat-3, which is scheduled for launch in 2011-12. It will carry an advanced LISS-III-WS (wide swath) sensor and revisit capability as Advanced Wide Field Sensor, thus overcoming limitations in its spatial resolution.

Sources did not disclose the nature of the design advice given to the Indians.

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