Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF), a division of the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, after eight years of preparation, will make available a huge amount of data from a joint mission of NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). NISAR satellite, neglected 30 July 2025 year Fr. 12:10 UTC from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's southeast coast, will provide free data to the global community.
NISAR mission and its significance
NISAR is NASA's first synthetic aperture radar satellite (SAR) with 1978 year, which uses dual frequencies: L-band (1,25 GHz, 24 cm) from NASA and S-band (3,20 GHz, 12 cm) from ISRO. The satellite will cover almost all landmasses, glaciers and coastal regions of the Earth each 12 days, producing detailed radar images with a resolution of 5–10 meters. The mission is aimed at monitoring surface changes, caused by natural and anthropogenic factors, in particular:
- Soil subsidence.
- Movement of glaciers and ice sheets.
- Bias, caused by earthquakes, volcanoes and landslides.
These data will improve understanding of sea level rise due to melting glaciers, although the oceans are not the primary focus of the mission. NISAR will generate approx 40 petabytes of data every year (1 petabyte = 1 a million gigabytes), that in 20 times exceeds 2 petabytes, which ASF archives from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 satellite.
Роль Alaska Satellite Facility
ASF, one of 11 centers of NASA's active archive, responsible for archiving and disseminating L-band SAR data, collected by NASA, as well as individual S-band data over the US territory.
ASF has collaborated with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for eight years (JPL) and NASA, to make data easier for scientists to access, operators, GIS teachers and analysts. Developed tools allow users to spend less time on data processing and more time on their analysis. IN 2023 year, NASA signed a five-year contract with ASF for 70 million dollars to continue the operation of the SAR archive center until 2028 year.
Source: https://www.spacedaily.com