• ISRO says it plans to launch a full-fledged niche Earth observation (EO) satellite — called the Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite or HySIS — using a critical chip technically called an “optical imaging detector array”, it has developed.
• With this satellite, it can see in 55 spectral or colour bands from 630 km above ground.

About Hyspex Imaging:

• Hyspex’ imaging can be used for a range of activities from monitoring the environment, crops, looking for oil and minerals all the way up to military surveillance — all of which need images that show a high level of differentiation of the object or scene.
• It can enable distinct identification of objects, materials or processes on Earth by reading the spectrum for each pixel of a scene from space.
• ISRO first tried it out in an 83-kg IMS-1 experimental satellite in May 2008. The same year, a hyperspectral camera was put on Chandrayaan-1 and used to map lunar mineral resources.
• Very few space agencies have such a satellite; a German environmental satellite called EnMAP is due to be launched on an Indian booster in 2018.

Source:TH