A new NASA Earth science mission is currently being built and tested at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NISAR – or the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar – is an Earth-orbiting satellite that will collect critical data on how the planet is responding to climate change. But before it can begin its science, JPL engineers must design and build the unique technology that will set it apart, including the largest reflector antenna ever launched by NASA.In this live Q&A, we’ll talk with two NISAR mission team members and answer your questions about what it takes to monitor Earth’s vital signs.Guests: Wendy Edelstein, payload manager, NASA JPLRicha Sirohi, systems engineer, NASA JPL
NISAR’s large deployable antenna will be used in a unique operating mode known as SweepSAR to provide wide area coverage and fine spatial resolution at the same time. When it transmits microwaves, the radar’s signal feed is stationary, producing a narrow beam of microwave energy. But when it receives the returning signal echoes, the radar feed sweeps its beam across the antenna’s reflector, thus giving SweepSAR its name.
List of Indian Earth observing satellites with scheduled launch time period; the list appears to have been updated in October 2022:http://database.eohandbook.com/database/agencysummary.aspx?agencyID=11Approved MissionsOCEANSAT-3 Nov 2022 (launched Nov 26)NISAR Sep 2023 (other sources say 2024)TRISHNA Dec 2024OCEANSAT-3A Nov 2025RESOURCESAT-3 Nov 2025RESOURCESAT-3S Jun 2026Planned MissionsINSAT-3DS 2023RISAT-1B 2023RESOURCESAT-3A 2026RESOURCESAT-3SA 2027Considered MissionsnoneHRSAT (was Aug 2023 launch) and ATMSAT-1 (was 2025 launch) are gone from the list.
Today was all about NISAR!It’s nearly time for the scientific heart of this @NASAEarth satellite to head to southern India ahead of its planned 2024 launch, so of course, we had to send it off in true JPL style. https://go.nasa.gov/3Y8OQLd
NISAR, jointly built by @NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, will provide critical information on Earth’s crust, ice sheets, and ecosystems. Our collaboration with @isro exemplifies what’s possible when we tackle complex challenges together.
NASA has handed the NISAR spacecraft over to ISRO!It will be launched in early 2024 on a GSLV (Mk-2) rocket into a Sun Synchronous Orbit.
🛰 Media got a close-up view of part of NISAR before it ships to India! NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) will observe Earth’s land & ice-covered surfaces.NASA is providing the L-band SAR and LSP has an advisory role in the 2024 launch! 🚀nisar.jpl.nasa.gov
Preparing GSLV Mk.III for 36 OneWeb satellites in middle of March. Commencing launch campaign immediately after today's launch for PSLV C55 for end of March on commercial mission. Using new facility. Preparing for landing demonstration of RLV in a few days time.For Gaganyan have abort and recovery mission today, another abort and recovery mission and trying for uncrewed mission before end of year.GSLV for NAVIC series satellite prior to NISAR, scheduled for end of this year. More PSLV missions as well.
Welcome, neighbor!The NISAR Earth-observing radar mission temporarily shares High-Bay 1 @NASAJPL with @EuropaClipper, as NISAR is prepared for encapsulation and shipment to @ISRO India. #PI_Daily
Touchdown in Bengaluru! @ISRO receives NISAR (@NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) on a @USAirforce C-17 from @NASAJPL in California, setting the stage for final integration of the Earth observation satellite, a true symbol of #USIndia civil space collaboration. #USIndiaTogether
NISAR is a big step closer to its 2024 launch. 🚀After years of construction, integration, and testing at JPL, the mission's science payload was recently packed up and shipped to @ISRO in India. Go inside the packing process with Scott Nowak, NISAR mechanical integration lead.
NISAR, or the NASA-@ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, will observe a wide range of Earth processes – from the flow rates of glaciers to the dynamics of earthquakes and volcanoes. Now in India, teams will finish assembly and prepare the spacecraft for launch:
ISRO Chairman wrapping up. Next GSLV launch is INSAT-3DS. Same rocket with NISAR. Coming months with PSLV, GSLV Mk.III, Gaganyan.
The NASA Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), the low earth orbit observatory being jointly developed by NASA and Isro, is on course for a January 2024 launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.Ana Maria Guerrero, NISAR system manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said the operations team was looking to complete the testing and set a “December-January time frame” for the launch.
Launch date NET 29 Jan 2024.
Powerful NASA-ISRO Earth Observing Satellite Coming Together in IndiaBuilt on opposite sides of the planet, the NISAR satellite will deepen understanding of climate change, deforestation, glacier melt, volcanoes, earthquakes, and more.Two major components of the NISAR satellite have been combined to create a single spacecraft in Bengaluru, India. Set to launch in early 2024, NISAR – short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar – is being jointly developed by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, to track movements of Earth’s land and ice surfaces in extremely fine detail. As NISAR monitors nearly every part of our planet at least once every 12 days, the satellite will also help scientists understand, among other observables, the dynamics of forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands.About the size of an SUV and partially wrapped in gold-colored thermal blanketing, the satellite’s cylindrical radar instrument payload contains two radar systems. The S-band radar is particularly useful for monitoring crop structure and the roughness of land and ice surfaces, while the L-band instrument can penetrate denser forest canopies to study the woody trunks of trees, among other observables. The wavelengths of the S-band and L-band signals are about 4 inches (10 centimeters) and 10 inches (25 centimeters), respectively, and both sensors can see through clouds and collect data day and night.The payload took a roundabout journey to get to this point. The S-band radar was built at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad in western India, then flown in March 2021 to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where engineers had been developing NISAR’s L-band radar. At JPL, the two systems were fixed to the payload’s barrel-like frame before being flown to the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru in March 2023.In the meantime, engineers and technicians at URSC, collaborating with teams from JPL, were busy developing the spacecraft’s main body, or bus, which is covered in blue blanketing that protects it during assembly and testing prior to launch. The bus, which includes components and systems developed by both ISRO and JPL, will provide power, navigation, pointing control, and communications for the mission.Since the radar payload and bus were joined in a URSC clean room in mid-June, NASA and ISRO teams have been working together to route thousands of feet of cabling between them. Still to be attached: the satellite’s solar panels, as well as the drum-shaped, wire-mesh reflector that will unfold from the end of a 30-foot (9-meter) boom. At nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector will be largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.The NISAR satellite is currently undergoing performance testing, to be followed by several rounds of environmental testing to ensure it can withstand the rigors of launch and meet all of its operational requirements once in orbit. Then it will be transported about 220 miles (350 kilometers) eastward to Satish Dhawan Space Centre, where it will be inserted into its launch fairing, mounted atop ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark II rocket, and sent into low Earth orbit.More About the MissionNISAR is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earth-observing mission. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. URSC, which is leading the ISRO component of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.
QuoteStill to be attached:...as well as the drum-shaped, wire-mesh reflector that will unfold from the end of a 30-foot (9-meter) boom. At nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector will be largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.
Still to be attached:...as well as the drum-shaped, wire-mesh reflector that will unfold from the end of a 30-foot (9-meter) boom. At nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter, the reflector will be largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.
