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US, India launch powerful Earth-monitoring satellite

A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India was launched yesterday, designed to track subtle changes in Earth's land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards.

Dubbed NISAR (Nasa-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), the pickup truck-sized spacecraft was lifted off at 5:40 pm (1210 GMT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast, riding an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket.

Highly anticipated by scientists, the mission has also been hailed as a milestone in growing US-India cooperation between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It has been designed to track subtle changes in Earth's land and ice surfaces.

"Our planet surface undergoes constant and meaningful change," Karen St Germain, director of Nasa's Earth Science division, told reporters. "Some change happens slowly. Some happens abruptly. Some changes are large, while some are subtle."

By picking up on tiny changes in the vertical movement of the Earth's surface -- as little as one centimeter (0.4 inches) -- scientists will be able to detect the precursors for natural and human-caused disasters, from earthquakes, landsides and volcanoes to aging infrastructure like dams and bridges.

"We'll see land substance and swelling, movement, deformation and melting of mountain glaciers and ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, and of course, we'll see wildfires," added St Germain, calling NISAR "the most sophisticated radar we've ever built."

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জুলাই ঘোষণাপত্র ৫ আগস্ট বিকেল ৫টায়: প্রেস উইং

অন্তর্বর্তী সরকার জুলাই ঘোষণাপত্রের খসড়া চূড়ান্ত করেছে। আগামী মঙ্গলবার, ৫ আগস্ট বিকেল ৫টায় গণঅভ্যুত্থানের সব পক্ষের উপস্থিতিতে জুলাই ঘোষণাপত্র জাতির সামনে উপস্থাপন করা হবে।

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