Chennai, Feb 5 (UNI) It was a traditional South Indian style send
off ceremony by breaking coconuts for NISAR Satellite before it was
airlifted to India for launch in 2024 by the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) from the spaceport of Sriharikota.
Officials from NASA, ISRO, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the
Indian Embassy held a send-off ceremony before the NASA-ISRO
Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) science instrument payload is
transported to southern India for integration with the spacecraft bus,
for further testing and launch in 2024.
NISAR, the SUV-size payload was loaded into a special cargo container
for a 9,000 mile (14,000 km) flight journey to India’s U R Rao Satellite
Centre in Bengaluru, where it will be merged with the spacecraft bus
in preparation for a 2024 launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.
NISAR is a joint Earth-observing mission between NASA and ISRO.
Before its departure, NISAR’s advanced radar instruments were shown to
the media in the clean room at NASA’s JPL in Southern California in the
presence of ISRO Chairman S.Somanath, JPL Director Laurie Leshin, and
dignitaries from NASA headquarters and India, and members of the mission
team.
Outside the facility, in front of a scale model of the NISAR satellite, NASA’s
NISAR Project Manager Phil Barela and ISRO’s NISAR Project Director
CV Shrikant ceremonially broke fresh coconuts.
The tradition, common in India, especially in South India, often marks
auspicious occasions and signifies hope for a smooth road ahead.
Leshin also presented a jar of JPL lucky peanuts to the ISRO delegation
Also present were Bhavya Lal, NASA’s associate administrator for technology,
policy, and strategy; Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science
Division; and Gerald Bawden, NISAR program scientist, among others.
“This marks an important milestone in our shared journey to better understand
planet Earth and our changing climate,” Leshin said.
“NISAR will provide critical information on Earth’s crust, ice sheets, and
ecosystems. By delivering measurements at unprecedented precision,
NISAR’s promise is new understanding and positive impact in communities.
Our collaboration with ISRO exemplifies what’s possible when we tackle
complex challenges together”, he said.
The ISRO Chairman “Today we come one step closer to fulfilling the
immense scientific potential NASA and ISRO envisioned for NISAR
when we joined forces more than eight years ago.
Somanath said "this mission will be a powerful demonstration of the
capability of radar as a science tool and help us study Earth’s dynamic
land and ice surfaces in greater detail than ever before”.
The NASA-ISRO SAR Mission (NISAR), a joint Earth-observing mission,
is one of the biggest project being collaborated between the US Space
Agency the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and
ISRO.
The launch of NISAR mission will be in early 2024 from the Satish Dhawan
Space Center, SHAR Range in Sriharikota, into a near-polar orbit at an
altitude of 747 km with an inclination of 98.4 deg.
ISRO will be using its heaviest home grown rocket GSLV-MkII/LVM-3 for
the mission which will take place from the Second Launch Pad, according
to information collected from the NASA website on the NISAR mission.
The NISAR Mission will measure Earth's changing ecosystems, dynamic
surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural
hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, and will support a host of other
applications.
NISAR will observe Earth’s land and ice-covered surfaces globally with
12-day regularity on ascending and descending passes, sampling Earth
on average every 6 days for a baseline 3-year mission.
NISAR will map global land biomass, the amount of organic material from
plants, every 12 days.
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