Indian Space research organization has pursued its Remote sensing programme for the development of earth resources of the country. It has launched many a mission since Bhaskara-I in 1979. The experience is very rich in terms of identifying the requirements of users, translating them into instrument specifications, design and development of state of the art Electro-optical Sensors and Satellites, data reception and image processing and application of the data for various developmental projects of the country. Advanced materials, components, fabrication technologies are available now. Methodologies are being evolved to characterize, qualify and use state of the art COTS devices in some of the space applications. ISRO developed many new technologies, which result in reduction of volume, weight and power of various subsystems of satellites and cameras. It is possible to have better performance from the sensors even at higher speeds and with low power. The data generated by Cameras can be processed onboard, compressed, stored and transmitted with advanced coding techniques. ISRO defined new satellite buses called Small Satellite Bus and Micro Satellite Bus. These are under development. In view of the above, many Electro-optical payloads can now be realized with less mass, volume and power compared to old generation Cameras. New sensors enabling observation of earth with Hyper-spectral imagers and in IR spectral region will be possible for better understanding of land and ocean resources, monitoring of weather and atmospheric pollution etc. This paper summarizes the advances made in the development of various subsystems of Electro-optical payloads and earth observation satellites. It also gives an account on the Small satellites planned to be developed by ISRO for Earth observation.
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