Indian space agency ISRO and its US counterpart NASA are
close to the launching date next year of their joint mission, utilising the
world’s most expensive Earth imaging satellite to study climate change.
Set for liftoff in the first quarter of 2024, the
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar or NISAR not only deal with climate concerns
but also assists in forecasting earthquakes and tsunamis.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Laurie Leshin heaped praise on the
collaboration, calling it the most noteworthy technological partnership between
Bharat and US in space exploration history.
“It has been so exciting to have our colleagues from
JPL here in Bengaluru, working shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues at
ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation),” Lehsin told ANI in Bengaluru.
Speaking to NDTV, Lehsin said, “We are so impressed
with Chandrayaan 3 and the future plans for Indian space exploration, and we
look forward to having many more partnerships between NASA and ISRO. The
respect for India’s space programme – it was already very high because India
has accomplished so much in space – but now it’s off the charts.”
Know about NISAR mission
• NISAR is a joint effort between NASA and ISRO,
marking their maiden collaboration on hardware development for an
Earth-observing mission.
• The NISAR mission will reportedly last for three
years, with the supreme objective to survey land and ice-covered regions of the
earth every 12 days. The main goal is to commence the mission in a 90-day
satellite commissioning period.
• If the mission is a success, then both the space
researchers from India and the US will plan to extend the mission further from
the decided three-year duration.
• The JPL, managed by Caltech in Pasadena, spearheads
the US segment, contributing the L-band SAR, radar reflector antenna,
deployable boom, communication subsystem, GPS receivers, solid-state recorder,
and payload data subsystem.
• The UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru takes the
lead for the ISRO component, providing the spacecraft bus, S-band SAR
electronics, launch vehicle, launch services, and satellite mission operations.
• NISAR’s comprehensive monitoring, occurring
approximately every 12 days, extends beyond climate change, encompassing the
dynamics of forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands, enhancing scientific
understanding across various observables.
“We are so excited to be working between NASA and ISRO
on NISAR, which is a radar machine to looks at the surface of the earth and how
it is changing. In India, they are interested in understanding how the mangrove
environment at the coasts is changing. We will understand how ice sheets are
changing and how earthquakes and volcanoes are happening all over the world… There
are many different aspects to understand our earth better,” added Leshin.
NE Watch Desk
