India and the US will launch the joint microwave remote sensing satellite for Earth observation in the coming months. The satellite will be named NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar). Science and Technology Minister Dr. Jitendra Singh informed this during a meeting with a high-level delegation of NASA led by its administrator Bill Nelson in New Delhi today.
In the meeting, Dr Jitendra Singh said that India has booming space sector startups under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that within a short span of just about four years, the number of Space Startups has gone up from a mere single digit to over 150.
The Department of Space in a statement said that NISAR is targeted for launch onboard India’s GSLV. It said that the data from NISAR will be highly suitable for studying the land ecosystems, deformation of solid earth, mountain and polar cryosphere, sea ice and coastal oceans on a regional to global scale.
It said that during the meeting, Mr Nelson urged Dr Jitendra Singh to expedite the program related to India’s first astronaut aboard a NASA rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). The two sides had agreed to launch a two-week joint India-US Space flight next year during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US earlier this year.