NISAR Satellite will Monitor Tectonic Movements

General Studies Paper-3

Context: Recently the ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said that the NISAR satellite will be able to monitor tectonic movements accurately and can fully map the earth twice a month.

NISAR Satellite

• NISAR is an Earth-observation satellite that stands for (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar).
• It is Jointly developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation under a partnership agreement signed in 2014.
• It will be launched into a polar Sun-synchronous dawn-dusk orbit.
• NISAR is the first satellite mission to collect radar data in two microwave bandwidth regions, called the L-band and the S-band.
  • The S-band payload has been made by the ISRO and the L-band payload by the U.S.

Monitoring of Earth Surface

• The NISAR system comprises a dual frequency, fully polarimetric radar, with an imaging swath greater than 150 miles (240 km).
• This design permits complete global coverage every 12-days, allowing researchers to create time-series interferometric imagery and systematically map the changing surface of Earth.
• It can monitor various aspects in very high resolution.
• After a 90-day commissioning period, the mission will conduct a minimum of three full years of science operations with the L-band radar to satisfy NASA’s requirements,
  • ISRO requires five years of operations with the S-band radar.

Objectives of the Mission

• NISAR can measure tectonic plate movements accurately. So a lot of geological, agricultural and water-related observations can be obtained from this satellite.
• It can study the water-stressing, climate change-related issues, agricultural changes through patterns, yield, desertification and continental movements precisely with respect to annual water cycle movements.
• NISAR’s data can help people worldwide better manage natural resources and hazards, as well as providing information for scientists to better understand the effects and pace of climate change.