RESOURCESAT-2 is a follow on mission to RESOURCESAT-1 and the eighteenth Remote Sensing satellite built by ISRO. RESOURCESAT-2 is intended to continue the remote sensing data services to global users provided by RESOURCESAT-1, and to provide data with enhanced multispectral and spatial coverage as well.

Important changes in RESOURCESAT-2 compared to RESOURCESAT-1 are: Enhancement of LISS-4 multispectral swath from 23 km to 70 km and improved Radiometric accuracy from 7 bits to 10 bits for LISS-3 and LISS-4 and 10 bits to 12 bits for AWIFS. Besides, suitable changes, including miniaturisation in payload electronics, have been made in RESOURCESAT-2.

RESOURCESAT-2 also carries an additional payload known as AIS (Automatic Identification System) from COMDEV, Canada as an experimental payload for ship surveillance in VHF band to derive position, speed and other information about ships.

RESOURCESAT-2 carries two Solid State Recorders with a capacity of 200 Giga Bytes each to store the images taken by its cameras which can be read out later to ground stations.