NISAR Satellite

In News

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are collaborating on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) Satellite.

About the Satellite

                                                    (Image Courtesy: Geospatial World)

• It is currently scheduled to launch in early 2022 and to have a minimum mission lifetime of three years with consumables up to 15 years.
• It’s an SUV-sized satellite which will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, into a near-polar orbit.
• Objective and Functions
  • Tracking subtle changes in the Earth’s surface, spotting warning signs of imminent volcanic eruptions, helping to monitor groundwater supplies and tracking the rate at which ice sheets are melting.
  • It will provide maps of surface soil moisture globally every 6 to 12 days at the spatial scale of individual farm fields.
• The partnership agreement was signed between NASA and ISRO in September 2014.
  • NASA’s Contributions: It will provide a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a payload data subsystem, L-band radar and the largest reflector antenna ever launched by NASA.
  • ISRO’s Contributions: It will provide the spacecraft bus, S-band radar, the launch vehicle and associated launch services.
• Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)
  • It refers to a technique for producing high-resolution images that can help in collecting data day and night in any weather.
• Significance
  • Tracking and Monitoring: The images will allow scientists to track changes in croplands, hazard sites and will help them to monitor crises such as volcanic eruptions.
  • Detailed and Broad Coverage: The images will be detailed enough to show local changes and broad enough to measure regional trends.
  • Better Understanding of Causes and Consequences: The data will allow for a better understanding of the causes and consequences of land surface changes, increasing the ability to manage resources and prepare for and cope with global change.
  • All Time Monitoring: The all weather satellite will give an unprecedented and unhindered ability to look at how Earth’s surface is changing in every kind of weather.
  • Accurate and Timely Information: Information related to soil moisture, crop classification, surface water extent/flood inundation, and crop yield is essential for anthropogenic and ecological health as well as economy.

                                                  (Image Courtesy: NASA)

Source: IE