What is Megha-Tropiques?

Megha-Tropiques (‘Megha’ in Sanskrit means clouds and ‘Tropiques’ is the French word for tropics) is a joint ISRO and CNES (French Space Agency) science collaboration project.. The main objective of this mission is to understand the energy and hydrological cycle in tropics. This satellite will be placed in a unique orbit( 20^o inclination and 867 km altitude), so as to obtain the highest coverage of the tropical region. The satellite will have four payloads: a passive microwave radiometer (MADRAS: 18.7GHz, 23.8GHz, 36.5GHz, 89GHz and 157GHz) to derive rainfall, water vapor, liquid water, ice and surface winds , a radiation budget sensor (ScaRaB: 0.5-0.7m, 0.2-4.0m, 0.2-200m and 10.5-12.5m) to estimate the radiation budget, a passive microwave sounder (SAPHIR: 6 channels around 183.31 GHz) and a GPS radio-occultation limb sounder for humidity profile. 

The advanced weather and climate research satellite which the two countries are developing together will become operational in early 2010.

International Conference

An International Conference on Megha-Tropiques Science and Applications was organised at Bangalore during March 23-25, 2009 at Antariksh Bhavan, ISRO Headquarters, Bangalore.

Megha-Tropiques, a satellite to study tropical weather and climate, is in an advanced stage of development and likely to be launched in December, according to C.B.S. Dutt, programme coordinator of the mission at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

Around 40 scientists from international space agencies in France, U.K., U.S.A., Japan and Brazil attended the meeting. The three-day meeting will deliberate on scientific aspects of Megha-Tropiques and on the retrieval of variables over tropical region. Megha-Tropiques will be capable of studying cloud systems, radiation budget, water vapour profiles and temperature and humidity profiles in our troposphere – every six hours.

"Megha-Tropiques has been conceived primarily to investigate the tropical regions as they receive maximum energy from the Sun than they radiate back into space. The excess energy received in the tropical region is utilised as a thermal engine and provides circulation in the atmosphere and oceans. The complex processes between solar radiation, water vapour, clouds, precipitation and atmospheric motion determine the life cycle of convective systems and influence Indian monsoon in the tropical region", ISRO said in its press release.  Megha-Tropiques is one of the unique satellites to be launched into the space having multiple sensors in a single satellite and provides highly reliable parameters to understand global tropical weather and climate.

"We need a high frequency observational platform capable of providing more frequent and accurate information. Megha-Tropiques will be capable of studying cloud systems, radiation budget, water vapour profiles and temperature and humidity profiles. We will be able to foretell climate and weather patterns with a much greater degree of accuracy once the satellite is in place," Dr. Nair (ISRO's Chairman )said.

For More Info

On CNES website - Click Here

On ISRO Website - Click Here