NISAR satellite: Isro ready with a radar to observe Earth with Nasa

 The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a collaboration between the Indian and US space agencies for a dual-frequency L and S-band SAR for earth observation

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has completed the development of radar capable of producing extremely high-resolution images for a joint earth observation satellite mission with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a collaboration between the Indian and US space agencies for a dual-frequency L and S-band SAR for earth observation.

The S-Band SAR was shipped from the Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad in Gujarat to the jet propulsion laboratory (JPL) at Pasadena in Los Angeles County, California, to be integrated with Nasa’s L-Bank SAR payload.

NISAR is estimated to be the world’s most expensive Earth-imaging satellite. The total cost of the project in­cludes Isro’s work share cost of about Rs 788 crore and about $808 million of JPL’s.

NISAR will be put into orbit in 2022 by Isro's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota near Chennai.

Indian scientists have spent nearly three decades working to tame the cryogenic technology, which was denied to Isro by the United States in the early 1990s. India's completely indigenous technology was successfully tested in 2017 and it placed the country among the global space superpowers. It also led India to be one of the top hubs for launches. Isro now launches satellites for various countries, including the US. NISAR will add one more feather in Isro's cap.