Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh:
The joint satellite mission undertaken by ISRO along with US NASA was not for surveillance purposes but was aimed at studying the Earth with an emphasis on sustainability, space agency chief S Somanath said on Saturday.
Bengaluru-based ISRO has tied up with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop a Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite to study the Earth after the impact of climate change, he said.
“The next mission of GSLV (rocket) will be the NISAR mission – the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission, a very large satellite. The configuration and power of the rocket have been steadily increasing in terms of payload and volume, which will be extremely helpful,” he said.
Somanath was speaking to reporters here after the successful launch of GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS satellite.
Replying to a question, Somanath clarified: “NISAR is not a surveillance satellite.” “It is purely for a particular application… it has two radars – one is 'L' band radar and the other is 'S' band radar. 'S' band radar is made by India and 'L'- band radar is made by the US,” he said.
“This data is in the public domain. So you can understand that if the data is in the public domain, it will not be a surveillance satellite. Firstly, the data will be shared between the US and India,” said Somanath, secretary of the Ministry of Space, said.
The joint mission focuses on many issues.
“…because it has an imaging capacity of about 12-14 days, Earth imaging can be performed with very high precision,” he said of NISAR.
“The satellite would also be able to measure water, agriculture, cover of greenery over the Earth's surface and so many other parameters. It also has the ability to penetrate the Earth to look at the availability of water in arid areas,” he says. said.
“So it is purely a satellite that is going to help in the areas of sustainability, water, environment, agriculture – the changes that are happening on Earth due to climate change. Such things are the primary focus of NISAR,” Somanath added.
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