WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument SAR-S (NISAR)

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Instrument: SAR-S (NISAR)

Instrument details

Acronym	SAR-S (NISAR)
Full name	SAR-S for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar
Purpose	High-resolution all-weather imagery of ocean and land, specially suited for soil moisture
Short description	S-band frequency in the range 3.162-3.237 GHz. Several polarisation modes available: Single Pol: HH or VV; Dual Pol: HH/HV or VV/VH; and Compact Pol: RH/RV
Background	New development
Scanning Technique	Pushbroom, side looking (incidence angle 33-47 degrees), swath 240 km
Resolution	Variable with the polarisation mode, 2 to 6 m
Coverage / Cycle	Global in 12 days
Mass		Power	Data Rate

Providing Agency	NASA
Instrument Maturity	Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period:	2025 to 2026
Last update:	2021-08-30

Detailed characteristics

Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NASA)
- NI-SAR (see instrument status) Feb 2025 - 2026

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
Imaging radar (SAR)

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 1
SAR imagers and altimeters
SAR imager
Subcomponent 3
MW imagery [in SSO]
Low-frequency SAR for vegetation mapping

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Biomass
Fraction of vegetated land
Land cover
Land surface topography
Oil spill cover
Sea-ice cover
Sea-ice type
Soil moisture at surface

Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.

Search:

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Glacier cover	1 - primary	Long time for mapping.	S-band SAR for accurate boundary detection
Sea-ice cover*	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR
Biomass*	2 - very high	Index only.. Infrequent coverage.	S-band sensitive to total biomass
Glacier motion	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Glacier topography	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	S-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Ice sheet topography	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	S-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Land surface topography*	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	S-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Oil spill cover*	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR
Soil moisture (in the roots region)	2 - very high	Affected by vegetation.. Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR
Soil moisture at surface*	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR
Fire fractional cover	3 - high	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. High resolution, for fire boundary detection
Sea-ice type*	3 - high	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR. Type interpreted as age/roughness
Snow water equivalent	4 - fair	Change detection only.. Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. SWE is retrieved by grigging with data from ground networks
Dominant wave direction	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"
Dominant wave period	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"
Fraction of vegetated land*	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR
Land cover*	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR
Significant wave height	5 - marginal	Highly indirect.. Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. Retrieved by spectral analysis of "imagettes". Boundary condition necessary for the retrieval
Soil type	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR
Vegetation type	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR
Wave directional energy frequency spectrum	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	S-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"
Sea-ice elevation	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	S-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry
Sea-ice thickness	5 - marginal	Change detection only.	S-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry. Thickness inferred by ice model

Showing 1 to 23 of 23 entries