NISAR mission launch in next few months: ISRO chief

Chennai: NISAR, the joint mission by NASA and ISRO aimed at measuring Earth’s changing ecosystems, dynamic surfaces, and ice masses providing information about biomass, natural hazards, and groundwater, will be launched in a couple of months from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, ISRO chairman Dr V Narayanan said on Wednesday.

Addressing a press conference after ISRO’s historic 100th launch from the SDSC, the space agency chief said the G1 mission for Gaganyaan, the country’s first manned mission to the Moon, will also be undertaken this year along with several other launches.

He also said the Union Government’s approval for a third launchpad at Sriharikota at a cost of Rs 4,000 crore and to build Next Generation Launch Vehicles (NGLV) that can carry heavy payloads would become a major boost for the space sector with ISRO already planning deep space missions which will be named as Chandrayaan 4 and 5.

On the ambitious NISAR mission, the ISRO chief said the mission will be launched in the next couple of months from Sriharikota, adding that of the two radars, the L band Radar was developed by ISRO and S band Radar by Jet Propulsion laboratory, NASA.

“The whole system has been integrated and tested at U R Rao Satellite Centre (in Bengaluru). It is ready to be transported from U R Rao Satellite Centre to Sriharikota," he added. NISAR, the joint mission of ISRO and NASA, 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.

Narayanan said the ISRO will launch a commercial flight of LVM3 for a foreign customer, TDS01 mission to validate almost 34 technologies by the first PSLV realised by industry consortium during 2025. To a specific question on whether ISRO can undertake 100 missions in the next 5 years to reach the 200th mark, Narayanan said it was possible but didn’t elaborate.

He also gave an update on the second launchpad complex being built by the ISRO in Kulasekarapattinam in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district, saying the facility is being constructed and will be ready for launch within two years.