NASA and ISRO collaborate on satellite NISAR

NASA and ISRO collaborate on satellite NISAR

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II – International Relations & GS-III – Space

In news

• NASA and ISRO are collaborating on developing a satellite called NISAR. 
• It will detect movements of Earth’s surface as small as 0.4 inches over areas about half the size of a tennis court.

Key takeaways 

• It is an SUV-sized satellite. 
• 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.
• Also, 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.
• 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.

Do you know?

• ISRO will provide the spacecraft bus, the second type of radar (called the S-band radar), the launch vehicle and associated launch services.
• The satellite will be launched in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India, into a near-polar orbit.
• It 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 to give an “unprecedented” view of the planet.