The NISAR satellite is designed to observe and measure some of Earth's most complex natural processes.
On October 1, 1958, NASA - the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - officially began its operations. The rest, as they say, is history. Over these 66 years, the US space agency has achieved some monumental milestones, each marking a step forward for the human race. And throughout its journey, NASA has had the entire world by its side, sometimes collaborating with other organizations to grow together.
Interestingly, NASA and ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organization) are currently co-developing an ambitious mission, named NISAR - the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. It's a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar and will be launched on an Earth observation satellite in 2025. Also, with an L-band (L-SAR) and an S-band (S-SAR) on board, it will be the first satellite to use two different radar frequencies.
Today, on the 66th anniversary of NASA, let's learn more about NISAR in this article.
The NISAR satellite will primarily be used for remote sensing - gathering information about various natural processes on Earth. The list includes everything from climate change to ice-sheet collapse to ecosystem disturbances to earthquakes to tsunamis to landslides and more. Using advanced radar imaging technology, it will map the elevation of land and ice masses of Earth 4-6 times a month at resolutions of 5 to 10 meters.
According to reports, NISAR will be a three-axis stabilized (in which "the spacecraft is held fixed in the desired orientation without any rotation") satellite, consisting of a 12-meter deployable mesh antenna. The L-SAR is likely to be used to monitor landscape topography and heavily forested areas, while the S-SAR will be used to observe soil moisture, especially in polar regions.
NISAR will use radar to study changes in ecosystems such as this forest in Tikal National Park in northern Guatemala
Notably, with an estimated total cost of US$1.5 billion, NISAR will be the world's most expensive Earth-imaging satellite.
NISAR is the first collaboration between the space agencies of the United States and India. With this mission, both agencies are looking forward to advancing our understanding of Earth's changing ecosystems.
It was on September 30, 2014, that the two space agencies signed a partnership to collaborate on NISAR. The US agency is providing the mission's L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem. On the other hand, ISRO is providing the satellite bus, an S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), the launch vehicle, and associated launch services.
Clean room engineers and technicians preparing the scientific core of NISAR
NASA's share of the mission cost is about US$808 million, while ISRO's is about ₹788 crore (US$94 million).
NISAR was originally scheduled to be launched on March 30, 2024. However, due to a required software update, it was postponed until further notice. Now, it's expected to be launched in early 2025.
The planned mission life is about three years.
The data collected from NISAR is expected to enhance forecasts and management of changing ecosystems climate, and natural hazards. All its data will be freely available and open to the public within one to two days after observation.
