The SARAL will study the sea surface heights and the data generated will be shared by both countries.
Indian space agency officials told IANS the data from SARAL will be useful for operational as well as research user communities in fields like marine meteorology and sea state forecasting; operational oceanography; seasonal forecasting; climate monitoring; ocean, earth system and climate research; continental ice studies; protection of bio-diversity; management and protection of the marine eco-system; environmental monitoring and improvement of maritime security.
According to ISRO, the SARAL satellite is the first under the Indian mini-satellite Bus-series 2 configured for 400 kg satellites.
The Indian space agency states this satellite frame is envisaged to be the workhorse for different types of operational missions in the coming years.
Among the other six satellites that PSLV-C20 would sling into orbit are two Canadian satellites - NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Space Surveillance Satellite), the world's first space telescope designed by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Sapphire satellite built by MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA); BRITE and UniBRITE (both Austrian); STRaND-1 (Britain) and AAUSAT (Denmark).
The STRaND-1 (Surrey Training, Research, and Nanosatellite Demonstrator) is the world's first 'smartphone satellite' carrying Google Nexus One phone running on the Android operating system.
The 6.5 kg satellite is a British mission jointly developed by the University of Surrey's Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).
The phone will run several applications, including collection of data and photographing the earth with its camera.
Once all the satellite's own operating systems have been checked out, key system functions will be transferred to the phone's components to take control and operate the satellite, SSTL said on its website.
According to CSA, NEOSSat will detect and track asteroids and satellites circling the globe every 100 minutes and scanning space near the Sun to pinpoint otherwise almost invisible asteroids.
The satellite will also be useful in tracking resident space objects, including space debris.
On the other hand, Sapphire will look for resident space objects that include functioning satellites and space debris circling between 6,000 km and 40,000 km above the earth.
