The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planning to launch at least two more missions this year, including the in-orbit Servicer Mission and the Lunar sample return mission. ISRO is also looking at two launches in November-December.
NISAR is a satellite that was launched in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India. It scans the globe every 12 days over the course of its three-year mission of imaging the Earth’s land, ice sheets, and sea ice. NISAR will provide measurements of ground deformation along faults before an earthquake occurs, from the earthquake itself, and in the time following.
Other missions that ISRO has set its eyes on include:
- Docking in space (SPADEX)
- Mars Lander Mission
He added that the space agency is targetting November-December for at least two more launches, one on its workhorse, the PSLV, and the other on the GSLV-Mk2. “The PSLV will launch the Xposat and also have POEM (PSLV Orbital Experimental Module) carrying scientific and commercial payloads onboard
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on an Earth observation satellite. The satellite will be the first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequencies.
The mission’s objectives include:
- Observing Earth and measuring its changing ecosystem and masses globally
- Tracking changes in landscapes, particularly forests and wetlands
- Measuring Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses
- Providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater
The data collected will help researchers understand the capture and release of carbon in these ecosystems.
The satellite is set to launch in 2024
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite will be in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). It will have a sun-synchronous dawn-dusk orbit with an altitude of 747 km, an inclination of 98.4º, and a repeat cycle of 12 days. The satellite will map the entire globe in 12 days.
NISAR will be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in January 2024. It will operate for a minimum of three years. The satellite will be three-axis stabilized, using reaction wheels that rotate to keep it correctly oriented to Earth and Sun.
The planned mission life of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite is three years. However, NASA requires the L-band radar for its global science operations for at least three years, while ISRO will use the S-band radar for a minimum of five years.
NISAR will sample Earth on average every 6 days for a baseline 3-year mission. It will provide maps of surface soil moisture globally every 6 to 12 days at the spatial scale of individual farm fields
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite is expected to launch in early 2024. The satellite will operate for a minimum of three years.
The NISAR science instrument payload arrived in Bengaluru, India on March 6, 2023. At ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre, it will be combined with the NISAR satellite body in preparation for launch.
The NISAR satellite will use a 12 m (39 ft) deployable mesh antenna and will operate on both the L- and S- microwave bands. The aperture mesh reflector (antenna) will be supplied by Astro Aerospace, a Northrop Grumman company.
NASA provided the L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (L-SAR) for the NISAR mission. The L-SAR has a wavelength of 24 cm. NASA also provided a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem.
ISRO provided the S-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (S-SAR) for the NISAR mission. The S-SAR has a wavelength of 10 cm. ISRO will use the S-SAR for a minimum of five years over specified target areas in India and the Southern Ocean.
The NISAR spacecraft has two fully capable synthetic aperture radar instruments that share a mechanical structure and reflector. The two radars operate at L-band and S-band
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite has been in the news recently:
- February 2023: The NISAR mission received a send-off ceremony at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.
- March 2023: The NISAR science payload arrived in India.
- November 2023: WION reported that NASA and ISRO will collaboratively launch the NISAR satellite in 2024
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