NISAR: the joint Earth-observing mission of NASA and ISRO

Context

NASA and ISRO are working towards the development of a satellite called NISAR.

About NISAR

• NISAR is an all-weather satellite jointly developed by NASA and ISRO.
• An agreement for the same was signed between NASA and ISRO in September 2014.
• Objective:It will be used to detect movements of the planet’s surface as small up to 0.4 inches for the areas which about half the size of a tennis court.
• Function: It will give a view of the planet the globe will be scanned every 12 days for the course of its three-year mission.
  • imaging the Earth’s land, ice sheets, and sea ice will be provided by this mission
  • the primary goals of the satellite will be to track changes in the Earth’s surface, studying signs of volcanic eruptions, to help in monitoring groundwater supplies, and study of the rate of melting of ice sheets
• Launching:The satellite is expected to be launched in 2022 from the SatishDhawan Space Center, Sriharikota.
  • It will be launched into a near-polar orbit.
• US support:NASA will provide
  • one of the radars for the satellite
  • a high-rate communication subsystem for science data
  • GPS receivers and a payload data subsystem
• ISRO support: ISROwill provide
  • the spacecraft bus
  • the second type of radar (called the S-band radar)
  • launch vehicle and associated launch services

What is SAR in NISAR?

• SAR refers to the synthetic aperture radar which will be used by NASA to measure changes in the Earth Surface.
• SAR is used for producing high-resolution images.