The keenly-awaited NISAR space mission, a first of its kind collaborative exercise between the space agencies of India and the United States, it seems, will not happen this year. NISAR did not figure in the list of missions the Indian Space Research Organisation submitted to the Lok Sabha on Thursday in response to a question on space missions to be launched this year. NISAR, which stands for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, is designed to make extremely granular observations of the Earth at regular intervals. The satellite is powerful enough to capture changes as small as one centimetre in size during its repeated observations over the same terrain. It will therefore be able to study the dynamic processes happening on Earth’s surface, like retreat of glaciers, changes in vegetation and forest cover, and even the movements during earthquakes and volcanoes. Scientists expect this satellite to provide new insights into our understandings of processes like climate change or natural hazards. NISAR was slated for a launch in the first half of this year, and the satellite, that had been put together in the United States after one of the two radars and some other components had been flown in from India, had been delivered to Bengaluru last year. However, in further testing, one of the key components, a 12-metre large antenna, was discovered to be in need of some improvements. The spacecraft had to be shipped back to the United States earlier this year for the upgrade. ISRO, in the meanwhile, had maintained that it was still hopeful for a launch in the second half of the year. The response to the Parliament question, however, shows that the launch might not be part of the plan this year. It listed at least six missions that would be launched in the next five months, including the first unmanned flight under the Gaganyaan programme. The Spadex, or Space Docking Experiment, mission that will demonstrate ISRO’s capability to join or assemble parts of a satellite in space is also expected to be launched. Spadex will lay the groundwork for ISRO’s plans to build a permanent space station by 2030. Docking is a process where two spacecrafts, both moving at extremely high speeds but not relative to each other, are aligned in a precise orbit and joined together - a capability necessary for joining different modules in space to create a space station. ISRO chairman S Somanath has previously said that this mission was likely by November or December. A TDS-01 mission, that is meant to be technology demonstration for an electronic propulsion system designed by Institute for Plasma Research-Gandhinagar, would also be launched later this year, ISRO said. Besides these, navigation satellite NVS-02, meant for the country’s IRNSS constellation, will be carried by a GSLV rocket. ISRO plans to carry out a launch of the newly-introduced SSLV (Small Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket as well.
