Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (IST) announced that the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite would soon be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).
Modi’s announcement came after a meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House during his visit to the United States.
“We have had close cooperation with the US in the field of space. The ‘NISAR’ satellite, built in collaboration with ‘ISRO’ and ‘NASA’, will soon fly into space on the Indian launch vehicle,” said PM Modi while addressing the media.
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Earlier, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman V Narayanan said that the space organisation’s collaborative effort with NASA, the NISAR mission, was likely to be launched in a couple of months.
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), which was scheduled for launch in 2024 was delayed after NASA scientists found that its 12-metre reflector antenna needed some corrective action and had to be taken to the US for rectification, Union minister Jitendra Singh informed the Indian parliament last year.
What is NISAR?
According to NASA, NISAR is a joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). This mission will track changes in Earth’s surface with unprecedented precision.
Satellite NISAR is the world’s first dual-frequency radar imaging satellite, which features both NASA’s L-band (1.25 GHz) and ISRO’s S-band (3.2 GHz) radars.
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This technology allows it to monitor earthquakes, deforestation, glacier movement, and even infrastructure damage from natural disasters.
The 2.8-tonne satellite will provide high-resolution, all-weather imaging of nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces every 12 days, making it a crucial tool for tracking climate change, monitoring natural disasters, and studying land deformation caused by geological activity.
PM Modi-Trump meeting at the White House
After their bilateral talk at the White House in Washington, India and the US have announced that they will conclude the first phase of a mega trade pact by this year and set a target of USD 500 billion in annual trade by 2030.
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President Trump hosted PM Modi for wide-ranging talks that focused on a range of critical issues including tariffs.
To broad-base overall ties in key sectors, Trump and Modi launched a new initiative called ‘US-India COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce and Technology) for the 21st Century’.