What’s in the news?

• NASA and ISRO are collaborating on developing a satellite called NISAR (NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar), which will detect movements of the planet’s surface as small as 0.4 inches over areas about half the size of a tennis court.
• The satellite will be launched in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, into a near-polar orbit and will scan the globe every 12 days over the course of its three-year mission of imaging the Earth’s land, ice sheets and sea ice .

What is NISAR?

• It’s an SUV-sized, all-weather satellite satellite that is being jointly developed by the space agencies of the US and India. 
• The partnership agreement was signed between NASA and ISRO in 2014, according to which NASA will provide one of the radars for the satellite, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers and a payload data subsystem. 
• ISRO, on the other hand, will provide the spacecraft bus, the second type of radar (called the S-band radar), the launch vehicle and associated launch services.
• Significantly, NISAR will be equipped with the largest reflector antenna ever launched by NASA.
• The name NISAR is short for NASA-ISRO-SAR. SAR here refers to the synthetic aperture radar that NASA will use to measure changes in the surface of the Earth. 
• Essentially, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) refers to a technique for producing high-resolution images. Because of the precision, the radar can penetrate clouds and darkness, which means that it can collect data day and night in any weather.

What are the primary goals of NISAR?

• Primary goals of NISAR include tracking subtle changes in the Earth’s surface, spotting warning signs of imminent volcanic eruptions, helping to monitor groundwater supplies and tracking the rate at which ice sheets are melting.

• The data from the NISAR helps in better understanding of the causes and consequences of land surface changes, increasing our ability to manage resources and prepare for and cope with global change.

Reference:

1. https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/nasa-isro-joint-mission-nisar-7246785/