The IAF and other search teams have used all possible options including going through pictures and data sent by Earth Observation (EO) satellites circling roughly 500 km overhead to find missing An-32 military transport aircraft.
The IAF said it was sifting through images sent by the Cartosat and the radar imaging satellite RISAT operated by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Through the 1990s, ISRO was among the space agencies that put a SAR transponder on its communication satellites as a party to an international non-commercial cooperation called Cospas-SARSat — working for space-based search and rescue of people and vehicles in distress.
According to Dr. Mukund Rao, former deputy director, Earth Observation Systems at ISRO and currently with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, the probability of finding an aircraft using satellite imagery was very remote; there were just a couple of such instances so far.
”In my view the scattered pieces may not be amenable to satellite-based image detection. The region has thick forest and valleys, the terrain is rugged with high elevation. The ability of images to detect pieces [of teh aircraft] is remote,” he said.
