What is NISAR? Most awaited India-US joint satellite mission to be launched on..., know its significance

After a very long delay, NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar)-an Indo-US joint satellite mission, is scheduled to launch from Sriharikota at 5:40 pm on July 30. The much-anticipated mission will deploy one of the largest and most advanced radar systems in space that will offer a stunning view of the Earth. The satellite will inject the radar system in a 743 km Sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98.4 degrees after lifting off on a GSLV-F16 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.

NASA-ISRO joint mission

The NISAR satellite weighs almost 2392 kg and has been developed in a joint mission by ISRO and NASA scientists. Scientists from both countries have been trying to develop the satellite for almost a decade by developing the mission’s two scientific payloads with diligent and precise work. The scientists worked even during the most challenging times during the Covid-19 pandemic. The two space organisations developed different radars. NASA developed the L-band radar to be used for longer-wavelength imaging, and ISRO along with the Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad developed the complementary S-band radar.

What NISAR can do?

With the success of this satellite, this would be the first satellite to observe the Earth equipped with a dual frequency synthetic aperture radar using NASA’s 12-metre unfurlable mesh reflector antenna integrated into ISRO’s modified 13K satellite bus. The satellite will help in scanning Earth with a range of 242 km and provide high-resolution imagery using SweepSAR technology for the first time, said ISRO. The satellite will provide significant information like weather and day and night data after every 12 days by analysing the entire earth. Through this scanning, there are even small changes in the Earth’s surface like deformation, movement of ice sheets and loss of vegetation which can be analysed.

ISRO also said that NISAR will be useful widely in case of studies that needs classifying sea ice, monitoring shorelines, changes in soil moisture, mapping and monitoring of surface water resources, as well as characterising storms, and finding ships in the sea. This will also be useful in providing an early disaster response. The launch was initially scheduled for 2024 launch which did not take place due to failure in one of its components after which it had to be sent back to the US for corrections. This caused multiple delays