NASA and ISRO’s joint venture, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), is expected to be launched in the first quarter of next year after undergoing several tests. The project manager for NASA’s NISAR, Phil Barela, stated that ISRO is estimating the launch to be fully prepared by the first quarter of next year.

Barela mentioned that the launch from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre is unlikely to happen before January. The mission is set to have a duration of three years and will conduct surveys of areas on Earth covered by land and ice every 12 days.

Regarding the ongoing testing, Barela stated that the company is currently conducting tests related to the remaining functionalities. Battery and simulation tests have already been carried out to ensure the system performs its tasks optimally.

Furthermore, the director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory mentioned that the NISAR mission will surpass previous missions. NISAR, short for the Low-Frequency Radar Observatory, is being developed jointly by ISRO and NASA.

Please note that this response does not contain any HTML tags or images.