NASA and India are set to launch a satellite that will map the Earth to centimeter-level accuracy on Wednesday from a launch pad on the Asian country's southeast coast.
The rocket launch, organised by the Indian Space Research Organisation, is scheduled to take off from the island's Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 5:40 p.m. local time, according to information released by NASA in a press release on Monday.
The event will be broadcast live Wednesday at 7 a.m. ET from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California on YouTube.
The satellite, about the size of a pickup truck, will orbit the Earth 14 times a day, scanning nearly all of the planet's land and icy surfaces twice every 12 days.
It is the first of its kind dual-band radar using L-band and S-band.
The NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar will create a 3D map of the Earth by using different radar frequencies to measure changes on the planet's surface, according to NASA.
“The satellite’s ability to ‘see’ through clouds and light rain, both day and night, will enable data users to continuously monitor earthquake- and landslide-prone areas, as well as determine the rate of change of glaciers and ice sheets,” according to a list of key facts about the mission. “It will also provide unprecedented coverage of Antarctica, information that will be useful for studying changes in the continent’s ice sheet over time.”
The data will provide communities and researchers with high-quality data to monitor key infrastructure and agricultural land, which will “improve understanding of natural hazards such as landslides and earthquakes, and help teams prepare for and respond to disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and volcanic eruptions,” NASA said in a press release.
Led by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, JPL leads the U.S. portion of the project and provides the L-band search and rescue system. JPL also provided other components of the system, including the radar reflector antenna, deployable boom, and GPS receivers.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will receive NISAR data in L-band.
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