Giant Radar Antenna Reflector on NASA-ISRO Satellite in Full ‘Bloom’ Spanning 39 feet (12 meters), the drum-shaped antenna reflector on the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite mission from NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully unfurled in low Earth orbit. The reflector had been stowed, umbrella-like, until the 30-foot (9-meter) boom that supports it could be deployed and locked in place. The NISAR satellite uses a radar antenna reflector that’s 39 feet (12 meters) in diameter to gather information about Earth’s changing surface. The mission scans nearly all the planet’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Launched by ISRO on July 30 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast, NISAR will track the motion of ice sheets and glaciers, the deformation of land due to earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, and changes in forest and wetland ecosystems down to fractions of an inch. It a...
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