What is NISAR, ISRO-NASA’s joint space mission ready for launch next year. All you need to know

The first joint space mission of NASA and ISRO, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), will be ready for launch in the first quarter of 2024. NISAR is a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) observatory that will measure Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses.

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Along with supporting a range of different applications, the observatory will gather information related to biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater.

Recently, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Laurie Leshin visited the ISRO headquarters and conducted a meeting with the Chairman of the Indian Space Agency and Secretary of the Department of Space, S Somanath.

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Other than discussing the timeline of the launch of NISAR, the two directors also discussed the possibility of collaboration between ISRO and NASA on other space programs.

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"NISAR will map the entire globe in 12 days and provide spatially and temporally consistent data for understanding changes in Earth's ecosystems, ice mass, vegetation biomass, sea level rise, groundwater and natural hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and landslides," according to ISRO.

Here is all that you need to know NISAR 

-NISAR is the first collaboration programme between the space agencies of India and the USA. The project is also expected to be one of the world's most expensive earth imaging satellite.

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-NISAR would be able to collect data day and night throughout the year. The Synthetic aperture radar is highly sophisticated equipment that is used to produce extremely high-resolution images.

-The satellite Earth Observatory will help in creating a data bank that will contain all the necessary information related to Earth's surface changes, natural hazards, and ecosystem disturbances.

-NISAR satellite will capture information based on two-frequency RADAR, an L-band 24-centimeter RADAR and an S-band 13 centimetre. ISRO is working on the S-band, whereas NASA is building L-band.

-Apart from the low-frequency RADAR, NASA will also provide the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem.

-For the NISAR mission, ISRO will provide the spacecraft bus, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.

-After the launch of the satellite, scientists would be able to collect information with the help of satellites for around three years. NISAR is a Low Earth Orbit(LEO) observatory and will map the entire globe in 12 days.