What is NISAR

• NISAR stands for NASA-ISRO Space Aperture Radar.
• NISAR is a  forthcoming satellite jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
• It is a low earth orbit observatory.

Objective

• The goal is to make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging.
• 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.

Details

• It carries L and S dual band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which operates with the Sweep SAR technique to achieve large swaths with high-resolution data.
• NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet’s surface less than a centimetre across.
• The SAR payloads mounted on Integrated Radar Instrument Structure (IRIS) and the spacecraft bus are together called an observatory.

Partnership

• NASA is providing the mission’s L-band synthetic aperture radar, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder and payload data subsystem.
• ISRO is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

Why in news?

• NISAR satellite to map Himalayas’ seismic zones.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/nisar-satellite-to-map-himalayas-seismic-zones/article66738274.ece#:~:text=The%20NISAR%20satellite%2C%20expected%20to,%2C%20Director%2C%20ISRO-National%20Remote