ISRO-NASA joint satellite mission not for surveillance

ISRO’s joint satellite mission with NASA is not for surveillance purposes but is aimed at studying the Earth with a focus on sustainable development, space agency chief S Somanath said on Saturday. He said Bengaluru-based ISRO is working with NASA to develop synthetic aperture radar satellites to study the Earth under the impact of climate change.

“The next mission for the GSLV (rocket) will be the NISAR mission – the NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar mission, which is a very large satellite. The configuration and capabilities of the rocket have been steadily improving in terms of payload capacity and volume, which It will be very useful,” he said. Somanath was interviewed by reporters after the successful launch of the GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS satellite.

Responding to a query, Somanath clarified: “NISAR is not a surveillance satellite.”

“It is purely designed for certain applications… It has two radars – one is the ‘L’ band radar and the other is the ‘S’ band radar. The ‘S’ band radar is made in India and the ‘L’ Band radar is American-made,” he said.

“The data is in the public domain. So you can understand that when the data is in the public domain, it will not become a surveillance satellite. First of all, the data will be shared between the United States and India.” Space Minister Somanath said.

Joint missions focus on many things. “…Because it has an imaging capability of about 12-14 days, it can image the Earth with very high accuracy,” he said of NISAR.

“The satellite will also be able to measure water, agriculture, green cover on the Earth’s surface and many other parameters. It will also be able to penetrate into the Earth’s interior to see how much water is available in arid areas,” he said.

“So it’s purely a satellite that will help with sustainability, water, environment, agriculture – the changes that are happening on Earth due to climate change. Those things are NISAR’s main focus,” Somanath added.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from associated news agency – PTI)