In the aftermath of the Americanbombing of the Iraqi military headquarters in Baghdad last December, as policy wonks and network television types raced to find evidence of destruction, the pictures came from a most unexpected source. Imprinted on the corner of dozens of high quality images that surfaced across the United States showing the flattened structures was the legend "IRS 1C" -- the Indian Remote Sensing satellite that is a workhorse for the Indian scientific establishment and the nearest thing to spy satellite that India has.According to several experts who spoke to The Indian Express, the IRS imagery is the best available outside the highly-secretive and classified images from US National Reconnaissance Organisation's top secret satellites like Keyhole and Lacross. While the best US spy satellites are said to have a resolution measured in inches, the IRS imagery has only a modest 5-metre resolution. But it is still good enough to take pictures of key installations and movements. What has further surprised American expertsis how the Indians managed to manouevre IRS 1C over Baghdad so soon after the Operation Desert Fox bombing. "Maybe they moved it around or maybe they were just plain lucky. But they were over Baghdad a day after the bombing and they were the only game in town," said John Pike, a space policy analyst with the Federation of American Scientists.

According to US experts, while IRS imagery is not top of the line, it definitely has military applications. "It may not be able to read the license plate of a car in a parking lot like US spy satellites can. But it sure can spot the car and that's all you need to bomb the spot," according to one analyst. India is one of the few countries with such capability -- after the United States, Russia, France and China. Israel has just entered the game while countries like Britain, Germany and Japan depend on the US for such intelligence. But Indian scientific sources say New Delhi uses IRS more for commercial purposes than military aims. In fact, the reason why IRScapabilities are so well-known and acknowledged in the open market circles is because Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO -- the Indian Space Research Organisation -- has signed a deal with a US company to market the satellite imagery. So ironically, while the Americans were miffed about having missed spotting the nuclear tests and slammed India with sanctions thereafter, they have been buying Indian satellite imagery throughout this period!

The ISRO deal was originally signed with the Earth Observation Satellite company EOSAT which was subsequently bought by the Colorado-based Space Imaging. According to Linda Lidov, a spokesperson for Space Imaging, the company sold IRS pictures of several bombed out Baghdad structures to a whole range of clients including US television networks.

"We believe they (the Indians) can task the satellite to take pictures anywhere in the world. But in this case we are not aware if the imagery was instructional or archival," Lidov said. Indian space experts declined toelaborate on the matter.

Experts say the IRS 1C and 1D offer three kind of images -- a 5 metre panchromatic image; a 23 meter colour spectral image; and a 188 meter multispectral wide area image. The 5 m and 23 m images can be merged to produce a 5 m colour picture. A 5 m IRS image sells for $ 2500- $ 3500, and depending on how much processing and analysis it requires, it could cost more. Typically, clients for such pictures are urban planners, environment experts, government and city offices involved in planning etc, but they could also be foreign countries. "Anyone with a credit card could order the pictures... and that includes Iraqis and Pakistanis," says Pike.

According to another expert, one reason why the Indians are so blase about selling space imagery (besides making money) is because the market is also becoming crowded now with more and more satellites going up. The Russians recently launched a satellite which will provide pictures with 2 meter resolution. Space Imaging itself is launching it'sown satellite named Ikonos sometime next month and that too will have a 2 meter resolution. Currently the leaders in the commercial market with only satellites like SPOT (10 metre resolution) and Landsat (20 metre resolution), the Indians will catch up later in the year.