NISAR’s payload will be the most advanced radar system ever launched as part of a NASA science mission, and it will feature the largest-ever radar antenna of its kind: a drum-shaped, wire mesh reflector nearly 40 feet (12 meters) in diameter that will extend from a 30-foot (9-meter) boom. It will also survey forests and agricultural regions to help scientists understand carbon exchange between plants and the atmosphere. Short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, NISAR will observe nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days, measuring movements in extremely fine detail. Soon, teams at the facility will combine the radar systems with the satellite’s body, or bus, and run it through tests in advance of its three-year mission. Its science payload of two radar systems, one built by NASA and the other by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), recently completed the journey from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, India. The NISAR Earth science mission has moved a step closer to its 2024 launch.
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