The objectives of the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) programme is to support the national economy in the areas of agriculture, water resources, forestry and ecology, geology, water sheds, marine fisheries, coastal management, weather forecast and natural disaster management.

Scientific mission objectives of IRS-1C and 1D were:

• To design, develop, launch and operate a state-of-the-art three axis body stabilised satellite for providing continued space based remote sensing services to the user community with enhanced resolution capability compared to IRS-1A/1B.
• To further develop new areas of user applications to take full advantage of the enhanced resolution and capacity of the IRS-1C/1D satellites.