NEW DELHI: After a lot delays, NASA has introduced that the world’s most superior and expensive earth remark satellite NISAR, collectively developed by India and the US for over a decade, is “likely to be launched in March” subsequent 12 months. It was earlier scheduled for launch in 2024.
In an announcement, the US house company mentioned, “Nasa and Isro are looking at a likely launch date in March 2025. Short for Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar, NISAR will scan nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days to measure changes in the planet’s ecosystems, its land and sea ice, and its solid Earth. The NISAR satellite will launch from Satish Dhawan Space Center on India’s southeastern coast.”
The 2.8-tonne Nisar satellite, whose growth began after India and the US signed an settlement in 2014, is designed to monitor planetary modifications with unmatched precision. The over Rs 5,800-crore imaging satellite is first of its type in the world because it options twin-frequency radar—Nasa’s L-band (1.25 GHz) and Isro’s S-band (3.20 GHz), which is able to ship unmatched information accuracy. Its important elements have been transported from the US to India in Oct 2024, marking a big logistical feat. However, the mission confronted delays due to technical complexities with its 12-metre radar antenna reflector.
NISAR’s information might help folks worldwide higher handle pure assets and hazards, in addition to present info for scientists to higher perceive the results and tempo of local weather change. It will even add to the scientists’ understanding of the Earth’s exhausting outer layer, its crust.
Observations from NISAR will profit humanity by serving to researchers world wide higher perceive modifications in the Earth’s floor, together with its ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice. It will even seize modifications in its forest and wetland ecosystems in addition to motion and deformation of the Earth’s crust equivalent to earthquakes, landslides and volcanic exercise, Nasa mentioned.
The world and fast protection from NISAR will present unprecedented alternatives for catastrophe response, producing information to help in mitigating and assessing harm, with observations earlier than and after disasters in brief time frames. Its information will even assist scientists perceive strong Earth actions and their implications, it mentioned.
The satellite’s key capabilities embody producing excessive-decision pictures utilizing radio alerts, functioning successfully in darkness and hostile climate, detecting floor modifications as small as one inch, and penetrating dense vegetation for complete mapping.
