BANGALORE: The United State Air Force on March 8 handed over NISAR, an earth observation satellite jointly developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), to the Indian space agency.

A US Air Force C-17 aircraft carrying the NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar (NISAR) has landed in Bengaluru, the US Consulate in Chennai said. The satellite is an outcome of a collaboration between the American space agency NASA and ISRO. “Touchdown in Bengaluru! ISRO receives NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) on a US Airforce C-17 from NASA JPL in California, setting the stage for final integration of the Earth observation satellite, a true symbol of US-India civil space collaboration. US-India together,” the US Consulate General, Chennai tweeted. NISAR will be used by ISRO for a variety of purposes including agricultural mapping, and landslideprone areas.

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission is a joint project between NASA and ISRO to co-develop and launch a dual-frequency synthetic aperture radar on an Earth observation satellite.

It will be  will be the first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequencies.

“NISAR will be the first radar of its kind in space to systematically map Earth, using two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet's surface less than a centimeter across. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) refers to a technique for producing fine-resolution images from a resolution-limited radar system." as per NISAR's official website. 

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