ISRO-NASA Built Satellite Set To Be Launched In India In September

Washington/New Delhi: An earth-observation satellite jointly developed by NASA and ISRO that will help study Earth’s land and ice surfaces in greater detail is all set to be shipped to India later this month for a possible launch in September.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the US state of California on Friday to oversee the final electrical testing of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite before being shipped to India.

“This mission will be a powerful demonstration of the capability of radar as a science tool and help us study Earth’s dynamic land and ice surfaces in greater detail than ever before,” Somanath said at the formal send-off ceremony organised at the JPL which was attended by senior scientists from the two space agencies.

S Somanath said that the NISAR spacecraft will be integrated into the satellite bus at the U R Rao Satellite Centre for launch within the next year.

“This is one of the most complex satellites. The elements that are built by JPL are excellent,” S Somanath said.

The event at JPL was marked by the ceremonial breaking of coconuts in front of a scale model of the satellite by NISAR project heads of NASA and ISRO Phil Barela and CV Shrikant respectively.