All you need to know about NISAR, the awe-inducing joint mission between NASA and ISRO

A collaborative effort between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has given rise to the ‘NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar’ (NISAR) Earth observation satellite, which is set to revolutionize the study of Earth’s forest and wetland ecosystems and their impact on the global carbon cycle, subsequently influencing climate change dynamics.

Scheduled for launch in early 2024, the NISAR radar satellite mission will offer profound insights into two critical ecosystem types, namely forests and wetlands, which hold a pivotal role in the natural regulation of greenhouse gases responsible for global climate change, as reported by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Upon entering orbit, NISAR’s advanced radar systems will conduct comprehensive scans of almost all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces every 12 days. The data it collects will empower researchers to comprehend two fundamental functions of these ecosystems: the absorption and release of carbon.

JPL emphasized that forests capture and store carbon within their tree wood, while wetlands preserve it in their organic soil layers. Any disruptions to these systems, whether gradual or sudden, can expedite the release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

The monitoring of these changes in land cover on a global scale will greatly assist researchers in investigating their impact on the carbon cycle, which governs the movement of carbon among the atmosphere, land, ocean, and living organisms.

“The radar technology on NISAR will provide us with a comprehensive view of the planet in terms of both space and time,” commented Paul Rosen, the NISAR project scientist at NASA’s JPL in Southern California. “It will offer a highly reliable perspective on the evolving state of Earth’s land and ice.”

NISAR is the result of an equal partnership between NASA and ISRO, marking the first instance of these two agencies collaborating in the development of hardware for an Earth-observing mission.

JPL, under NASA’s supervision through the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and contributes the mission’s L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). NASA is also responsible for delivering various components, including the radar reflector antenna, deployable boom, high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem.

ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru is heading the ISRO segment of the mission, responsible for the spacecraft bus, S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, launch services, and satellite mission operations. The collaborative NISAR mission represents a significant milestone in Earth observation technology and climate science.



from Firstpost Tech Latest News https://ift.tt/6PJ0A2e

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVID-19 origins: Should we pay more attention to the lab leak theory and formally investigate it?

Image
A year and a half into the pandemic, we still do not know exactly where the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, came from. The prevailing view so far has been that the virus “spilled over” from bats into humans. But there are increasing calls to investigate the possibility that it emerged from a lab in Wuhan, China, where Covid first appeared at the end of 2019. So what do we know for sure, and what do we need still to find out? We know the sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is close to that of bat coronaviruses . Several decades ago its “ancestor” was circulating in bat populations in southern Asia. But there are still many unanswered questions: we don’t know how the virus arrived in Wuhan, how its sequence evolved to allow human infection, and under what conditions it infected the first people who crossed its path. And for each of these stages, we don’t know whether there was a human contribution (direct or indirect). Zoonotic transmission pathways, in other words the pas
Read more

Menstrual cups are cheaper, more sustainable than pads and tampons for women

Image
Every year in America, women spend at least US$2.8 billion on sanitary pads and tampons that can take hundreds of years to decompose . Is there a more economical and environmentally friendly way? To find out, we asked Susan Powers , a professor of sustainable environmental systems at Clarkson University about her work comparing the environmental impact of tampons, sanitary pads and menstrual cups. What is a menstrual cup? A menstrual cup is a type of reusable feminine hygiene product. It’s a small, flexible bell-shaped cup made of rubber or silicone that a woman inserts into her vagina to catch and collect menstrual fluid. It can be used for up to 12 hours, after which it is removed to dispose of the fluid and cleaned. The cup is rinsed with hot water and soap between each insertion and sterilized in boiling water at least once per period. A cup can last up to 10 years . Although menstrual cups have been around for decades, they historically have been less popular than pads or ta
Read more

Human bodies respond to infections differently depending on the time of day

Image
When microorganisms – such as bacteria or viruses – infect us, our immune system jumps into action. It’s highly trained to sense and eliminate infections and clear up any damage caused by them. It’s typically assumed our immune systems work the exact same way regardless of whether an infection occurs during the day or at night. But research spanning over half a century now shows our bodies actually respond differently at day and night. The reason for this is our body clock, and the fact that each cell in the body, including our immune cells, can tell what time of day it is. Our body clock has evolved over millions of years to help us survive. Every cell in the body has a collection of proteins that indicate the time depending on their levels. Knowing whether it’s day or night means our body can adjust its functions and behaviours (such as when we want to eat) to the correct time. Our body clock does this by generating 24 hour rhythms (also termed circadian rhythms ) in how cells f
Read more