The TRISHNA mission, a collaborative effort between ISRO and the French space agency CNES, aims to provide detailed monitoring of Earth’s surface temperature, emissivity, biophysical, and radiation variables. This initiative addresses water and food security challenges, focusing on human-induced climate change impacts and efficient water resource management. The TRISHNA (Thermal Infra-Red Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural Resource Assessment) mission, part of this effort, aims to monitor energy and water budgets, water stress, water use, and water quality in continental biospheres.
Additionally, it will assess urban heat islands, thermal anomalies, snow-melt runoff, glacier dynamics, aerosol optical depth, atmospheric water vapor, and cloud cover. The mission’s objectives include aiding agricultural water management, climate monitoring, urban planning, water quality monitoring, subsurface fire detection, geothermal resource assessment, and cryosphere monitoring.
Equipped with two primary payloads a Thermal Infra-Red (TIR) payload from CNES and a Visible-Near Infra-Red-Short Wave Infra-Red (VNIR-SWIR) payload from ISRO – TRISHNA will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 761 km. It will contribute to global initiatives such as GEOGLAM, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the Global Water Watch.
TRISHNA’s data will serve as Essential Agricultural Variables (EAVs) and Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), aiding policy and decision-makers, watershed managers, agro-industries, and the farming community. With its imaging capabilities, TRISHNA will enhance understanding of Earth’s processes and support global climate change mitigation efforts through optimized resource management.
