WASHINGTON — A joint Earth science mission between NASA and its Indian counterpart is now scheduled to launch as quickly as subsequent March after being delayed to restore its predominant radar antenna.
In a presentation on the annual assembly of the American Geophysical Union right here Dec. 11, Gerald Bawden, program scientist for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission at NASA Headquarters, stated the spacecraft is now scheduled to launch from India in a window that opens in late March.
NISAR was beforehand scheduled to launch within the spring of this yr, however NASA introduced in March that it might delay the launch to make repairs to the spacecraft’s 12-meter deployable reflector utilized by its predominant radar instrument. Engineers concluded that the reflector would get hotter than anticipated when in orbit instantly after launch whereas nonetheless stowed. Those repairs required delivery the antenna from India to California.
NASA accomplished these repairs by October, delivery the antenna again to India on a C-130 plane. The company stated then that NISAR would launch in early 2025 however was no more particular. NASA had stated in July that the launch couldn’t happen between October 2024 and February 2025 as a result of the launch would place the spacecraft into an orbit with “durations of alternating daylight and shadows” that will create temperature fluctuations affecting the reflector’s deployment.
Bawden stated the difficulty with the antenna was found throughout exams of the spacecraft in a thermal vacuum chamber. “Some of the temperatures had been larger than we anticipated them to be,” he stated, “so what we determined to do is take away the reflector from NISAR and produce it again to the United States.”
The repair to the reflector, he stated, concerned putting strips of reflective tape on rods within the reflector that had been black. “We are set now with NISAR,” he stated. “The {hardware} is totally checked out.”
The spacecraft is in storage for 2 causes. One is to attend till the eclipse interval ends Feb. 8. The second is that the launch pad at India’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre that will likely be used for the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) launching NISAR should first assist one other GSLV launch of a navigation satellite tv for pc, NVS-02.
The NVS-02 launch is at present scheduled for mid-January. “Once it launches, it’s going to take six to eight weeks to refurbish the launch pad” earlier than NISAR can launch, he stated. The mission is at present concentrating on a launch no sooner than late March.
NISAR is a joint mission by NASA and the Indian area company ISRO that can fly L- and S-band radars for world mapping of land and ice. The radars on NISAR will likely be able to superior radar imaging to assist a variety of Earth science wants, from measuring the circulation charges of glaciers to volcanic exercise. Bawden stated science operations ought to start about three months after launch.
NISAR additionally represents one of many largest collaborations between NASA and ISRO up to now, with NASA spending greater than $1 billion in formulation and growth of the mission. NASA is offering an L-band radar and engineering payload, whereas ISRO is offering the S-band payload, spacecraft bus and GSLV launch car.
