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cartosat-3·dataset

Cartosat-3 — India's sharp-eyed mapping satellite

Cartosat-3 high-resolution optical
land ISRO ISRO NRSC Bhoonidhi active
In plain English

What it measures. Very high-resolution optical pictures (objects under a metre across are visible) of cities, infrastructure and terrain.

How it's made. An ISRO satellite with a sub-metre camera, the sharpest in India's civilian fleet, used for mapping and planning.

How & where you'd use it. Urban planning, infrastructure and disaster damage assessment at building scale. Access via ISRO Bhoonidhi (registration; high-res scenes may be priced).

What's measured

high resolutionopticalurbancartographyISROmappingbuilding

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-11-27 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent68, 6, 98, 37

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

ISRO's high-resolution optical imaging satellite (sub-metre panchromatic) for cartography, urban planning and infrastructure. Distributed via ISRO Bhoonidhi/NRSC (registration; some data commercial).

Get the data

cartosat-3_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="cartosat-3",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ISRO NRSC Bhoonidhi
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.