NISAR launch was delayed from 2024 due to a radar antenna issue.
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is expected to launch around March 2025 on a GSLV rocket.
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft is scheduled to launch from India in a window that opens in late March.
After the NVS-02 launch, refurbishing the Satish Dhawan launch pad is expected to take six to eight weeks before NISAR can launch.
ISRO is providing the NISAR S-band payload, the spacecraft bus, and the GSLV launch vehicle.
The NISAR spacecraft is in storage to wait until the eclipse period ends on 2024-02-08 and until the launch pad at India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre becomes available.
NASA completed repairs to NISAR’s reflector by October and shipped the antenna back to India on a C-130 aircraft.
NASA indicated that NISAR could not launch between October 2024 and February 2025 because the orbit would create temperature fluctuations from alternating sunlight and shadow affecting the reflector’s deployment.
NASA delayed NISAR’s original spring launch to repair the spacecraft’s 12-meter deployable reflector used by its main radar instrument.
NASA is providing the NISAR L-band radar and an engineering payload.
The L-band and S-band radars on NISAR will be capable of advanced radar imaging to support Earth science needs including measuring glacier flow rates and volcanic activity.
The Satish Dhawan Space Centre launch pad designated for NISAR must first support a GSLV launch of the navigation satellite NVS-02.
ISRO issued a statement that Garcetti and S. Somanath discussed several cooperative ventures including a potential follow-up to the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft scheduled to launch later 2024.
The NISAR antenna is currently with the rest of the spacecraft in India and must be shipped to a facility in California to receive the special coating.
As part of a restructuring of the Earth System Observatory in the fiscal year 2025 budget request, NASA will not develop a separate Surface Deformation and Change (SDC) mission and will instead use data from NISAR to fulfill that designated observable.
ISRO is providing the S-band payload, the spacecraft bus, and the launch vehicle for NISAR.
The NISAR spacecraft reflector is an antenna that measures 12 m across when fully deployed.
NISAR is scheduled to launch later in 2024.
Both NISAR and Europa Clipper missions are on schedule for launches in spring and October respectively.
NISAR will provide greater coverage of the Southern Ocean than any radar mission to date.