The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has completed the development of a radar capable of producing extremely high-resolution images for a joint earth observation satellite mission with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa). The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a collaboration between the Indian and US space agencies for a dual-frequency L and S-band SAR for earth observation. The S-Band SAR was shipped from the Space Applications Centre at Ahmedabad in Gujarat to the jet propulsion laboratory (JPL) at Pasadena in Los Angeles County, California, to be integrated with Nasa’s L-Bank SAR payload. NISAR is estimated to be the world’s most expensive Earth imaging satellite. The total cost of the project includes Isro’s work share cost of about Rs 788 crore and about $808 million of JPL’s.
Chandrayaan-3, India s third mission to Moon, is likely to be launched in 2022, ISRO chief K Sivan has said. The COVID-19 lockdown has hit several projects of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) including Chandrayaan-3, which was scheduled to be launched in late 2020, and Gaganyaan, the country s first manned space mission. Unlike its predecessor, Chandrayaan-3 will not have an orbiter. We are working on it. It is the same configuration like Chandrayaan-2 but it will not have an orbiter. The orbiter launched during Chandrayaan-2 will be used for Chandrayaan-3. With that we are working on a system and mostly the launch will be next year in 2022, Sivan told PTI.