[meteorite-list] U.S., India to Collaborate on Earth, Mars Missions

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-328  

U.S., India to Collaborate on Earth, Mars Missions
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 30, 2014

In a meeting Tuesday in Toronto, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and
K. Radhakrishnan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO), signed two documents to launch a NASA-ISRO satellite mission to
observe Earth and establish a pathway for future joint missions to
explore Mars.

While attending the International Astronautical Congress, the two space
agency leaders met to discuss and sign a charter that establishes a
NASA-ISRO Mars Working Group to investigate enhanced cooperation between
the two countries in Mars exploration. They also signed an international
agreement that defines how the two agencies will work together on the
NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, targeted to launch
in 2020. NASA's contribution to NISAR is being managed and implemented
by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"The signing of these two documents reflects the strong commitment NASA
and ISRO have to advancing science and improving life on Earth," said
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "This partnership will yield tangible
benefits to both our countries and the world."

The joint Mars Working Group will seek to identify and implement
scientific, programmatic and technological goals that NASA and ISRO have
in common regarding Mars exploration. The group will meet once a year to
plan cooperative activities, including potential NASA-ISRO cooperation
on future missions to Mars.

Both agencies have newly arrived spacecraft in Mars orbit. NASA's Mars
Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft arrived at Mars
Sept. 21. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the
tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM),
India's first spacecraft launched to Mars, arrived Sept. 23 to study the
Martian surface and atmosphere and demonstrate technologies needed for
interplanetary missions.

One of the working group's objectives will be to explore potential
coordinated observations and science analysis between MAVEN and MOM, as
well as other current and future Mars missions.

"NASA and Indian scientists have a long history of collaboration in
space science," said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for
science. "These new agreements between NASA and ISRO in Earth science
and Mars exploration will significantly strengthen our ties and the
science that we will be able to produce as a result."

The joint NISAR Earth-observing mission will make global measurements of
the causes and consequences of land surface changes. Potential areas of
research include ecosystem disturbances, ice sheet collapse and natural
hazards. The NISAR mission is optimized to measure subtle changes of
Earth's surface associated with motions of the crust and ice surfaces.
NISAR will improve our understanding of key impacts of climate change
and advance our knowledge of natural hazards.

NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar
frequencies (L-band and S-band) to measure changes in our planet's
surface less than a centimeter across. This allows the mission to
observe a wide range of changes, from the flow rates of glaciers and ice
sheets to the dynamics of earthquakes and volcanoes.

Under the terms of the new agreement, NASA will provide the mission's
L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a high-rate communication
subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid state recorder, and a
payload data subsystem. ISRO will provide the spacecraft bus, an S-band
SAR, and the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

NASA had been studying concepts for a SAR mission in response to the
National Academy of Science's decadal survey of the agency's Earth
science program in 2007. The agency developed a partnership with ISRO
that led to this joint mission. The partnership with India has been key
to enabling many of the mission's science objectives.

NASA and ISRO have been cooperating under the terms of a framework
agreement signed in 2008. This cooperation includes a variety of
activities in space sciences such as two NASA payloads -- the
Mini-Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) and the Moon Mineralogy Mapper
-- on ISRO's Chandrayaan-1 mission to the moon in 2008. During the
operational phase of this mission, the Mini-SAR instrument detected ice
deposits near the moon's northern pole.

JPL has participated in providing navigation and communication support
for ISRO's MOM. JPL provides navigation and Deep Space Network support
for MAVEN, as well as Electra telecommunications relay hardware and
operations. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Program for NASA.

For more information on NASA's Mars exploration program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

For more information on the NISAR mission, visit:

http://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov

Alan Buis (NISAR)/Guy Webster (Mars)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-354-0474/818-354-6278
alan.buis at jpl.nasa.gov / guy.webster at jpl.nasa.gov

Steve Cole
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole at nasa.gov

2014-328