The surface deformation and change observable will build on the NISAR synthetic aperture radar mission that is under development by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
ISRO is providing the NISAR spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services.
NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use L-band and S-band radar frequencies together to measure surface changes smaller than one centimeter.
NASA is providing NISAR’s L-band SAR, a high-rate communications subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and the payload data subsystem.
NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) is a joint collaboration between NASA and ISRO to deploy a dual-frequency L-band and S-band synthetic aperture radar for Earth observation.
ISRO’s Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre shipped the NISAR S-band payload to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for integration with the L-band SAR payload.
ISRO is providing the NISAR spacecraft bus, the S-band radar, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services for the mission.
NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies, L-band and S-band, to measure changes in Earth’s surface less than a centimetre across.
The NISAR S-band SAR payload was flagged off by the Secretary in the Department of Space and ISRO Chairman K Sivan on 2021-03-04.
The U.S.-Indian NISAR satellite scheduled for launch in 2022 will include SAR sensors that can support avalanche detection.