India Space Research Organization and National Aeronautics and Space Administration have formally come together for the first time to launch a satellite that will help scientists study earthquake and its patterns.
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar or NISAR is the name given to the satellite. It is designed to observe and measure some of the earth's most complex processes that are the ecosystem disturbances, ice-sheet collapse, and natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.
NASA Administrator Charles Frank Bolden is planning to launch the satellite by 2020-21, but ISRO’s chairman AS Kiran Kumar said that they will surely do the launch before the expected date.
"USA is providing L-Band. It will help us look at crustal deformation. We are looking for hints at earthquake detection. We cannot predict earthquake but we can advise people where it has occurred. We are hoping to launch it by 2020-21," Bolden told reporters here.
“The project will not only help in understanding the seismic activity but also give inputs for monitoring agricultural activities in India”, said ISRO AS Kiran Kumar.
Officials of many space agencies were assembled in the national capital to discuss aspects of remote sensing technologies for disaster mitigation and how to improve the global climate change monitoring.
"So, currently, the activities are going on in full swing. Both the governments have cleared the basic mission. We are looking at a possible launch with 2021. We are trying to advance the launch and we are working towards it. As far as we are concerned the usage of this got many significant usages for our programme," Kumar said.
"In future, we are also looking at what we could so with NASA in our future MARS missions. We are also looking at opportunities for some of our payloads which can be carried on their (NASA's) programmes. This is a continuous dialogue on how we can take forward our current engagements on Mars programme," Kumar said.
Originally Published in Zee News
