ISRO working with NASA to make maiden launch in 2021

Sriharikota (AP), Aug 27: India and US have set a target of 2021 to put their collaborative earth observation satellite NISAR in orbit, ISRO Chairman A S Kiran Kumar said today.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was working with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US to undertake the launch of NISAR by 2021, he told reporters here after the successful launch of GSAT-6 onboard GSLV-D6. "One of the GSLV Mark II will carry NASA's satellite NISAR in 2021.

There is a very good chance of commercial requirement. Currently we are working on it," he said. NISAR Mission (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Mission) will be a dedicated mission to optimally measure intrinsic changes of the Earth's surface associated with motions of the crust and ice surfaces.

NASA has been studying concepts for a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission to determine Earth change in three disciplines - ecosystems, solid earth and cryospheric sciences.

In the course of these studies, a partnership with ISRO developed that led to a joint mission with L-band and S-band SAR systems on board.

ISRO has identified a range of applications of particular relevance to India that the mission will address, including monitoring of agricultural biomass over India, snow and glacier studies in the Himalayas, Indian coastal and near- shore ocean studies, and disaster monitoring and assessment.

Elaborating about ISRO's future plans, Kumar said, it was working on enhancing capacity of the space agency by utilising both GSLV and PSLV vehicles for its future missions. After the successful launch of the first GSLV in January 2014, Kumar said there has been enough demand for both PSLV and GSLV.

"GSLV puts satellites in Geostationary orbit. Whereas PSLV is different. But there is huge market even for GSLV. After today's launch we are confident of making successful launches in GSLV," he said.

He said the ISRO was working on reducing the time frame for its launches. According to GSLV-D6/GSAT-6, Mission Director R Umamaheswaran the launch of GSLV-D6 was one of the "shortest campaign" undertaken by ISRO.

"The preparations for this launch commenced on April 8. This is one of the shortest launch campaigns as of GSLV is concerned and today is 100th day of the campaign. Here the cryogenic stage is assembled in Mahendragiri. With this we are able to reduced duration of the campaigns," he said.

PTI