- The 694 kg Indian remote sensing satellite (IRS) CARTOSAT-2B, which is its main payload;
- the 116 kg ALSAT-2A of Algeria,
- 6.5 kg NLS-6.1 AISSAT-1 of Canada,
- NLS-6.2 TISAT of Switzerland and,
- STUDSAT, a picosatellite weighing less than 1 kg built by a consortium of seven engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
PSLV was initially designed by ISRO to place 1,000 kg class IRS into 900 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit. Since its first successful launch in October 1994, the capability of PSLV was increased to 1,750 kg from 850 kg. In earlier flights, the workhorse has launched the 960 kg remote sensing satellite Oceansat-2 and six nanosatellites from abroad into a 728 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit.
The ten-storey, nearly 300 ton launch vehicle, has four stages using both solid and liquid propulsion systems alternately. With fifteen consecutively successful flights so far, the PSLV has repeatedly proved itself as a reliable workhorse. It has demonstrated multiple satellite launch capability having launched 22 satellites for international customers besides 17 Indian satellites of which twelve were remote sensing satellites, a recoverable capsule (SRE-1), two small satellites for HAM radio communications and experimental communications, one meteorological (weather watching) satellite (KALPANA-1) and the spacecraft for India's first mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-1.
Cartosat-2B is a state of the art 17th remote sensing satellite of India. Data from the satellite will find applications in cartography at cadastral level, urban and rural infrastructure development and management, as well as Land Information System (LIS) and Geographical Information System (GIS).
It caries a state-of-the-art Panchromatic camera (PAN) that takes black-and-white pictures in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The imagery will have a spatial resolution of 0.8 metre. The camera covers a swath (geographical strip of land) which is 9.6 km wide.
Its imagery can be used for the preparation of detailed forest type maps, tree volume estimation, village/cadastral level crop inventory, town/village settlement mapping and planning for comprehensive development, canal alignment, rural connectivity assessment, planning new rural roads and monitoring their construction, coastal landform/land use and coral/mangrove mapping and monitoring of mining activities.
The satellite also carries a Solid State Recorder with a capacity of 64 Giga Bits to store the images taken by its camera. These images can later be transmitted when the satellite comes within the visibility of a ground station. The satellite's health will be continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at Bangalore with the help of ISTRAC network of ground stations at Bangalore, Lucknow, Mauritius, Biak in Indonesia, Svalbard in Norway and Troll in Antarctica.
Indian Remote Sensing Satellite System has established the National Natural Resources Management System (NNRMS) for which the Department of Space (DOS) is the nodal agency. NNRMS is an integrated resource management system, which aims at optimal utilisation of the country's natural resources by a proper and systematic inventory of resource availability using remote sensing data in conjunction with conventional techniques.
The students satellite Studsat was built by students from Nitte Meenakshi Institute of Technology, BMS Institute of Technology (BMSIT), MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT), RV College of Engineering (RVCE), Bangalore and from Hyderabad--Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT), Institute of Aeronautical Engineering (IARE) and Vignan Institute of Technology & Science (VITS), Hyderabad.
A brief history of remote sensing satellites:
| Sl no. | Satellite | Launch date | Vehicle | Result |
| 1 | IRS-1-A | Mar 17, 1988 | Vostok (USSR) | Successful |
| 2 | IRS-1-B | Aug 29, 1991 | Vostok (USSR) | Successful |
| 3 | IRS-1-E | Sep 20, 1993 | PSLV- D-1 | Unsuccessful |
| 4 | IRS-P-2 | Oct 15, 1994 | PSLV- D-2 | Successful |
| 5 | IRS-1-C | Dec 28, 1995 | Molniya (Russia) | Successful |
| 6 | IRS-P-3 | Mar 21, 1996 | PSLV- D-3 | Successful |
| 7 | IRS-1-D | Sep 29, 1997 | PSLV- C-1 | Successful |
| 8 | OCEANSAT-1 | May 26,1999 | PSLV C-2 | In service |
| 9 | TES | Oct 22, 2001 | PSLV- C-3 | In service |
| 10 | RESOURCESAT-1 | Oct 17, 2003 | PSLV- C-5 | In service |
| 11 | CARTOSAT-1 | May 5, 2005 | PSLV C-6 | In service |
| 12 | CARTOSAT-2 | Jan 10, 2007 | PSLV- C-7 | In service |
| 13 | CARTOSAT-2-A | Apr 28, 2008 | PSLV- C-9 | In service |
| 14 | IMS-1 | Apr 28, 2008 | PSLV- C-9 | In service |
| 15 | RISAT-2 | Apr 20, 2009 | PSLV- C-12 | In service |
| 16 | OCEANSAT-2 | Sep 23, 2009 | PSLV- C-14 | In service |
Launches from India:
| Sl no. | Vehicle | Launch Date | Result |
| 1 | SLV-3 E-1 | Aug 10, 1979 | Unsuccessful |
| 2 | SLV-3 E-2 | Jul 18, 1980 | Successful |
| 3 | SLV-3 D-1 | May 31, 1981 | Successful |
| 4 | SLV-3 D-2 | Apr 17, 1983 | Successful |
| 5 | ASLV- D-1 | Mar 24, 1987 | Unsuccessful |
| 6 | ASLV- D-2 | Jul 13, 1988 | Unsuccessful |
| 7 | ASLV- D-3 | May 20, 1992 | Successful |
| 8 | PSLV- D-1 | Sep 20, 1993 | Unsuccessful |
| 9 | ASLV- D-4 | May 4, 1994 | Successful |
| 10 | PSLV- D-2 | Oct 15, 1994 | Successful |
| 11 | PSLV- D-3 | Mar 21, 1996 | Successful |
| 12 | PSLV- C-1 | Sep 29, 1997 | Successful |
| 13 | PSLV- C-2 | May 26, 1999 | Successful |
| 14 | GSLV- D-1 | Apr 18, 2001 | Successful |
| 15 | PSLV- C-3 | Oct 22, 2001 | Successful |
| 16 | PSLV- C-4 | Sep 12, 2002 | Successful |
| 17 | GSLV- D-2 | May 8, 2003 | Successful |
| 18 | PSLV- C-5 | Oct 17, 2003 | Successful |
| 19 | GSLV- F-01 | Sep 20, 2004 | Successful |
| 20 | PSLV- C-6 | May 5, 2005 | Successful |
| 21 | GSLV- F-02 | July 10, 2006 | Unsuccessful |
| 22 | PSLV- C-7 | Jan 10, 2007 | Successful |
| 23 | PSLV- C-8 | Apr 23, 2007 | Successful |
| 24 | GSLV- F-04 | Sep 2, 2007 | Successful |
| 25 | PSLV- C-10 | Jan 21, 2008 | Successful |
| 26 | PSLV- C-9 | Apr 28, 2008 | Successful |
| 27 | PSLV- C-11 | Oct 22, 2008 | Successful |
| 28 | PSLV- C-12 | Apr 20, 2009 | Successful |
| 29 | PSLV- C-14 | Sep 23, 2009 | Successful |
| 30 | GSLV- D-3 | Apr 15, 2010 | Unsuccessful |
