Communication-Centric Intelligence Satellite (CCI-Sat)

Communication-Centric Intelligence Satellite is an Indian Advanced Reconnaissance Spy Satellite, being developed by the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). It will be India's first officially declared spy satellite and according to ISRO it should be in the sky by 2014. This satellite will help Indian intelligence agencies to significantly boost surveillance of terror camps in neighboring countries.

The CCI-Sat will be able to capture images, eaves drop on communication (for example, a conversation between two satellite phones) and surveillance. It will be equipped with synthetic aperture radar to take high resolution images of the target region. The cost of the satellite is expected to be around INR 100 crore (around USD 25 million). ISRO will contribute towards the satellite's design and development and DERL will be responsible for the payload.

According to the Director of Defence Electronics Research Laboratory (DERL), Mr G Bhoopathy, the CCI-Sat would orbit the Earth at an altitude of 500 km and would cover hostile regions in India neighborhood by passing on the surveillance data to the intelligence agencies. He also added that now greater focus was on space and that equipping for electronic warfare from space was a major goal of the government.

The CCI-Sat, unlike earlier satellites like the TES (Technology Experiment Satellite), CartoSat series and the RISAT-2, will be used only for intelligence related work. And according to G Bhoopathy, the CCI-Sat will be much better and more advanced than the RISAT-2 which is currently the most advanced imaging satellite with India.

This Satellite will also be a test bed for fielding ASAT & killer Sat countermeasure technology . Similar in line with Cartosats the satellite can be steered up to high degrees along as well as across the track and will an agile platform fielding cutting edge technology developed from experiences gained by fielding India’s remote sensing & TES satellites.

References

• Bhargavi, Kerur. "India's Spy in the Sky by 2014", DNA India, February 10, 2010