TRISHNA, the third India–France satellite, will launch in 12–16 months to map water stress

The news

Bengaluru. TRISHNA (Thermal Infra-Red Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural Resource Assessment) will be launched in the next 12-16 months, Jasvinder Singh Khoral, Director (Projects) of ISRO’s U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, said on Sunday at the “TRISHNA Water for Tomorrow” workshop, The Hindu reports. It is the third satellite India and France have developed, after Megha-Tropiques and SARAL, with ISRO and the French space agency CNES. The project has taken “a decade or so” to reach this stage. Per ISRO, CNES supplies the thermal infrared instrument and ISRO a visible and short-wave infrared one, with 57 m resolution over land, from a 761 km sun-synchronous orbit. How it works: every surface gives off heat as infrared light; reading it gives land surface temperature. A well-watered crop stays cool because it loses water by evapotranspiration; a thirsty one heats up. So temperature maps water stress.