Radar imaging satellite for agriculture, forestry, plantations, soil moisture, hydrology, and flood mapping.
EOS-04, also called RISAT-1A, is a radar imaging satellite: its C-band synthetic aperture radar sends out its own microwave pulses, so it can image the ground through cloud, smoke and darkness. It was ISRO's first launch of 2022, lifting off on PSLV-C52 on 14 February into a sun-synchronous orbit at about 530 km.
Because radar sees through monsoon cloud, EOS-04 is used where optical cameras fail — mapping floods while it is still raining, estimating soil moisture, tracking crops through the kharif season and monitoring forest cover.