IIT-Kharagpur to Contribute with ISRO in NASAs NI-SAR Project

Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur may get qualified for research collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) after seeing IIT-Kgp proficiency in Radar technology and also witnessing its flourishing association of years with ISRO.

The presence of two scientists from the premier space research agency in Kharagpur on Monday fanned speculations that IIT-Kharagpur has evolved as the front-runner for the coveted tie-up.

Followed by the accomplishment of Chandrayaan, Mangalayaan and the partnership work of 4 years for oceanic wind measuring radar - Scatterometer - the upcoming huge collaborative project would be the NASA-ISRO radar mission, also called as NI-SAR.

Presently, NI-SAR is among the most talked-about scientific project in the nation and the collaboration is yet to get green flag from both the respective governing bodies. The project is most discussed also because of the meticulousness of the radar that might be able to prevent damage through natural calamities.

The aerospace engineering department in IIT kharagpur, through its impressive Kalpana Chawla Space Research Centre, is already conducting a critical research related to radar with the help of ISRO.

Alok Chatterjee, a NASA scientist and alumnus of IIT-Kgp of 1973 batch said that the radar technology research in the IIT department and the radar related research outcomes can also be used successfully for NI-SAR research.

The NI-SAR research project will have a radar collecting data via two bands. The band 'L' will be managed by ISRO, whereas, band ‘S’ will be handled by NASA. After collecting data it will then be shared for further final computations to find out tectonic movements of the earth which is the cause of earthquakes, surge of tidal waves, melting of glaciers and sea level rise as explained by Paul Rosen.

He added that this research will help to combat disaster on a large degree.

NI-SAR is a project worth multi-million. This will incur huge expenses, which will partially be funded by NASA and ISRO both.

As explained by Chatterjee, that NI-SAR must cost $100 million, if the previous Project Chandrayaan incurred $73 million and Project Mangalayaan incurred $83 million.