The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has revealed the new images of its NASA-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, a project which is planned to take off in January 2024.

This new partnership between NASA and Isro will take off for the mission from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, which is located on the southeast coast of India, and hosted many historic feats of India in space missions.

This NISAR satellite will be elevated into orbit with  Isro's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), to make a significant step in exploration of space and Earth’s observation. 

What is Isro-NASA mission?

This NASA-Isro NISAR mission is designed and deployed to revolutionise the understanding of Earth's ecosystem, ice-sheet dynamic, and the natural hazards like earthquakes and landslides. It has an advanced radar imaging technology, NISAR can map the elevation and movement of the land masses and ice sheets of Earth with precision. It will offer us invaluable data for climate research and natural resource management. 
 

The Phases of Isro-NASA mission:

The first three months of this NASA-Isro mission following the launch are designated for the in-orbit checkout (IOC), this will be a crucial period in which the observatory’s readiness for the scientific effort will be checked thoroughly.

The launch of this new Isro mission is like a carefully planned set of steps that helps the observatory go from being on Earth inside the launch vehicle to floating in space where it will do its job. The important part of this mission is to make sure that the solar panels are set up and that the observatory can talk back and forth with the people on the ground who are in control.

This face of the mission is segregated in sub phases: initial checkout, it includes the examination of Isro’s engineering systems and JPL's engineering payload; spacecraft checkout; and instrument checkout.

Each step of these phases is designed to check the operational capabilities of the observatory, which starts from the deployment and movement of all parts and the most essential things are the boom and the radar antenna.