New Delhi: NASA–ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is set to be launched in first quarter of 2024 after some preliminary tests, particularly those related to vibration, NSA officials said.

“ISRO is projecting the first quarter of next year. So, I mean, that’s ready,” NASA NISAR Project Manager Phil Barela said during a media interaction.

The NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission will measure Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, sea level rise, and groundwater, and will support a host of other applications. NISAR will observe Earth’s land and ice-covered surfaces globally with 12-day regularity on ascending and descending passes, sampling Earth on average every 6 days for a baseline 3-year mission.

The mission is a partnership between NASA and ISRO. Under the terms of the agreement, NASA will provide the mission’s L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a high-rate telecommunication subsystem for scientific data GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and a payload data subsystem. ISRO will provide the satellite bus, an S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), the launch vehicle, and associated launch services.