Chennai, Aug. 30 -- After launching July 30, the NISAR (NASA-ISRO SyntheticAperture Radar) Earth-observing radar satellite mission, a joint effort between NASAand the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is on schedule to start scienceoperations this fall.
In an update, NASA said following the deployment of its 39-foot (12-meter) radarantenna reflector on August 15, engineers powered on the satellite's L-band andS-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems, which, together, will trackmovement of Earth's ice and land surfaces in unprecedented detail.
In addition, the spacecraft, including the radar payload, has passed all of thepreliminary checks performed by NASA and ISRO mission teams to ensurethey are operating normally.
The mis...