Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh), July 29: The 27.30 hour countdown for the ambitious NASA-ISRO NISAR Mission commenced on Tuesday, ISRO sources said.
ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle will carry the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit at 5.40 pm on Wednesday.
Conceptualised between the two space agencies for over a decade, the mission received further boost following the meeting of US President Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington in February this year.
The mission, which is the 102nd launch from this spaceport here, is also the first mission for a GSLV rocket destined to the Sun-synchronous Polar Orbit.
“The 27.30 hour countdown started by 2.10pm on Tuesday. Total 27.30 hours”, ISRO sources told PTI.
In a social media update, ISRO said, “the GSLV-F16/NISAR is one day to launch. GSLV-F16 is ready to carry NISAR into orbit. Final preparations underway. Launch countdown has commenced at 2.10 hours today.”
ISRO will launch the NISAR satellite aboard the GSLV-Mk II rocket from here.
The GSLV-F16 marks the 18th flight of India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle and the 9th operational flight with an indigenous cryogenic stage.
The 51.7-meter-tall, three-stage rocket will lift off from the second launch pad, at this spaceport located approximately 135 km east of Chennai. After undertaking a 19 minute journey post launch, the satellite is expected to be placed into its designated orbit at an altitude of 740km.
While ISRO has launched earth observation satellites in the past including Resourcesat and RISAT, the gathered data from the satellites were confined to Indian territory.
However, through the NISAR mission, scientists globally would be able to collect information about the planet every 12 days.
The NISAR mission would provide high-resolution data enabling scientists to comprehensively monitor the planet’s land and ice surfaces like never before, building a detailed record of how they shift over time, ISRO said.
NISAR Mission also marks a new chapter on the growing collaboration between the two space agencies.
According to NASA, the NISAR mission builds on a strong heritage of successful programmes, including Chandrayaan-1 and the recent Axiom Mission 4, which saw ISRO and NASA astronauts working together aboard the International Space Station for the first time.
In Chandrayaan-1, the first mission to the Moon by ISRO in October 2008, NASA had made its first collaboration with ISRO to provide the scientific payloads Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3).
The PSLV-C11 Chandrayaan-1 mission after successful completion of all major mission objectives , made more than 3,400 orbits around the moon.
ISRO said the NISAR Mission is jointly developed by ISRO and NASA for microwave imaging purpose globally. It carries an L-band (provided by NASA) and S-band (provided by ISRO) Synthetic Aperture Radar with capability to acquire fully polarimetric and interferometric data.
NISAR would image the global land and ice-covered surfaces, including islands, sea ice and oceans every 12 days. The unique dual-band SAR employs advanced, novel SweepSAR technique, which provides high resolution and large swath imagery.
The primary mission objective of NISAR is to study land and ice deformation, land ecosystems and oceanic regions in the areas of common interest to the US and Indian science communities. (PTI)
