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By NASA
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory used radar data taken by ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite before and after the 2015 eruption of the Calbuco volcano in Chile to create this inter-ferogram showing land deformation. The color bands west of the volcano indicate land sinking. NISAR will produce similar images.ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech A SAR image — like ones NISAR will produce — shows land cover on Mount Okmok on Alaska’s Umnak Island . Created with data taken in August 2011 by NASA’s UAVSAR instrument, it is an example of polarimetry, which measures return waves’ orientation relative to that of transmitted signals.NASA/JPL-Caltech Data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, which launched in 1989, was used to create this image of Crater Isabella, a 108-mile-wide (175-kilometer-wide) impact crater on Venus’ surface. NISAR will use the same basic SAR principles to measure properties and characteristics of Earth’s solid surfaces.NASA/JPL-Caltech Set to launch within a few months, NISAR will use a technique called synthetic aperture radar to produce incredibly detailed maps of surface change on our planet.
When NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) new Earth satellite NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) launches in coming months, it will capture images of Earth’s surface so detailed they will show how much small plots of land and ice are moving, down to fractions of an inch. Imaging nearly all of Earth’s solid surfaces twice every 12 days, it will see the flex of Earth’s crust before and after natural disasters such as earthquakes; it will monitor the motion of glaciers and ice sheets; and it will track ecosystem changes, including forest growth and deforestation.
The mission’s extraordinary capabilities come from the technique noted in its name: synthetic aperture radar, or SAR. Pioneered by NASA for use in space, SAR combines multiple measurements, taken as a radar flies overhead, to sharpen the scene below. It works like conventional radar, which uses microwaves to detect distant surfaces and objects, but steps up the data processing to reveal properties and characteristics at high resolution.
To get such detail without SAR, radar satellites would need antennas too enormous to launch, much less operate. At 39 feet (12 meters) wide when deployed, NISAR’s radar antenna reflector is as wide as a city bus is long. Yet it would have to be 12 miles (19 kilometers) in diameter for the mission’s L-band instrument, using traditional radar techniques, to image pixels of Earth down to 30 feet (10 meters) across.
Synthetic aperture radar “allows us to refine things very accurately,” said Charles Elachi, who led NASA spaceborne SAR missions before serving as director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California from 2001 to 2016. “The NISAR mission will open a whole new realm to learn about our planet as a dynamic system.”
Data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, which launched in 1989, was used to create this image of Crater Isabella, a 108-mile-wide (175-kilometer-wide) impact crater on Venus’ surface. NISAR will use the same basic SAR principles to measure properties and characteristics of Earth’s solid surfaces.NASA/JPL-Caltech How SAR Works
Elachi arrived at JPL in 1971 after graduating from Caltech, joining a group of engineers developing a radar to study Venus’ surface. Then, as now, radar’s allure was simple: It could collect measurements day and night and see through clouds. The team’s work led to the Magellan mission to Venus in 1989 and several NASA space shuttle radar missions.
An orbiting radar operates on the same principles as one tracking planes at an airport. The spaceborne antenna emits microwave pulses toward Earth. When the pulses hit something — a volcanic cone, for example — they scatter. The antenna receives those signals that echo back to the instrument, which measures their strength, change in frequency, how long they took to return, and if they bounced off of multiple surfaces, such as buildings.
This information can help detect the presence of an object or surface, its distance away, and its speed, but the resolution is too low to generate a clear picture. First conceived at Goodyear Aircraft Corp. in 1952, SAR addresses that issue.
“It’s a technique to create high-resolution images from a low-resolution system,” said Paul Rosen, NISAR’s project scientist at JPL.
As the radar travels, its antenna continuously transmits microwaves and receives echoes from the surface. Because the instrument is moving relative to Earth, there are slight changes in frequency in the return signals. Called the Doppler shift, it’s the same effect that causes a siren’s pitch to rise as a fire engine approaches then fall as it departs.
Computer processing of those signals is like a camera lens redirecting and focusing light to produce a sharp photograph. With SAR, the spacecraft’s path forms the “lens,” and the processing adjusts for the Doppler shifts, allowing the echoes to be aggregated into a single, focused image.
Using SAR
One type of SAR-based visualization is an interferogram, a composite of two images taken at separate times that reveals the differences by measuring the change in the delay of echoes. Though they may look like modern art to the untrained eye, the multicolor concentric bands of interferograms show how far land surfaces have moved: The closer the bands, the greater the motion. Seismologists use these visualizations to measure land deformation from earthquakes.
Another type of SAR analysis, called polarimetry, measures the vertical or horizontal orientation of return waves relative to that of transmitted signals. Waves bouncing off linear structures like buildings tend to return in the same orientation, while those bouncing off irregular features, like tree canopies, return in another orientation. By mapping the differences and the strength of the return signals, researchers can identify an area’s land cover, which is useful for studying deforestation and flooding.
Such analyses are examples of ways NISAR will help researchers better understand processes that affect billions of lives.
“This mission packs in a wide range of science toward a common goal of studying our changing planet and the impacts of natural hazards,” said Deepak Putrevu, co-lead of the ISRO science team at the Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad, India.
Learn more about NISAR at:
https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov
News Media Contacts
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jan 21, 2025 Related Terms
NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) Earth Earth Science Earth Science Division Jet Propulsion Laboratory Explore More
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A capacity increase by almost 80%! In late July 2024, the Malargüe deep-space communication station completed an important upgrade of its antenna feed that will allow missions to send much more data back to Earth.
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By European Space Agency
The first IRIDE satellite – the Pathfinder Hawk – is now in orbit around Earth after lifting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on 14 January.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Lunar Planet Vac, or LPV, is one of 10 payloads set to be carried to the Moon by the Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander in 2025. LPV is designed to efficiently collect and transfer lunar soil from the surface to other science and analysis instruments on the Moon.Photo courtesy Firefly Aerospace Among all the challenges of voyaging to and successfully landing on other worlds, the effective collection and study of soil and rock samples cannot be underestimated.
To quickly and thoroughly collect and analyze samples during next-generation Artemis Moon missions and future journeys to Mars and other planetary bodies, NASA seeks a paradigm shift in techniques that will more cost-effectively obtain samples, conduct in situ testing with or without astronaut oversight, and permit real-time sample data return to researchers on Earth.
That’s the planned task of an innovative technology demonstration called Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), one of 10 NASA payloads flying aboard the next lunar delivery for the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. LPV will be carried to the surface by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander.
Developed by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company of Altadena, California, LPV is a pneumatic, compressed gas-powered sample acquisition and delivery system – essentially, a vacuum cleaner that brings its own gas. It’s designed to efficiently collect and transfer lunar soil from the surface to other science instruments or sample return containers without reliance on gravity. Secured to the Blue Ghost lunar lander, LPV’s sampling head will use pressurized gas to stir up the lunar regolith, or soil, creating a small tornado. If successful, material from the dust cloud it creates then will be funneled into a transfer tube via the payload’s secondary pneumatic jets and collected in a sample container. The entire autonomous operation is expected to take just seconds and maintains planetary protection protocols. Collected regolith – including particles up to 1 cm in size, or roughly 0.4 inches – will be sieved and photographed inside the sample container with the findings transmitted back to Earth in real time.
The innovative approach to sample collection and in situ testing could prove to be a game-changer, said Dennis Harris, who manages the LPV payload for the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
“There’s no digging, no mechanical arm to wear out requiring servicing or replacement – it functions like a vacuum cleaner,” Harris said. “The technology on this CLPS payload could benefit the search for water, helium, and other resources and provide a clearer picture of in situ materials available to NASA and its partners for fabricating lunar habitats and launch pads, expanding scientific knowledge and the practical exploration of the solar system every step of the way.”
Under the CLPS model, NASA is investing in commercial delivery services to the Moon to enable industry growth and support long-term lunar exploration. As a primary customer for CLPS deliveries, NASA aims to be one of many customers on future flights. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the development of seven of the 10 CLPS payloads carried on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander.
Learn more about. CLPS and Artemis at:
https://www.nasa.gov/clps
Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
Alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
Alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jan 08, 2025 EditorBeth RidgewayContactCorinne M. Beckingercorinne.m.beckinger@nasa.govLocationMarshall Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Internal view of LignoSat’s structure shows the relationship among wooden panels, aluminum frames, and stainless-steel shafts.Credit: Kyoto University In December 2024, five CubeSats deployed into Earth’s orbit from the International Space Station. Among them was LignoSat, a wooden satellite from JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) that investigates the use of wood in space. Findings could offer a more sustainable alternative to conventional satellites.
A previous experiment aboard station exposed three species of wood to the space environment to help researchers determine the best option for LignoSat. The final design used 10 cm long honoki magnolia wood panels assembled with a Japanese wood-joinery method.
Researchers will use sensors to evaluate strain on the wood and measure its responses to temperature and radiation in space. Geomagnetic levels will also be monitored to determine whether the geomagnetic field can penetrate the body of the wooden satellite and interfere with its technological capabilities. Investigating uses for wood in space could lead to innovative solutions in the future.
A traditional Japanese wooden joining method, the Blind Miter Dovetail Joint, is used for LignoSat to connect two wooden panels without using glue or nails.Credit: Kyoto University Three CubeSats are deployed from space station, including LignoSat. Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
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