Tag: Imaging

NASA to build a satellite with ISRO

#NASA #ISRO #satellite #Earth #imaging #NISAR #space

NASA and ISRO will be teaming up to build the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, an Earth imaging satellite. The project cost will be close to $1.5 billion.

NISAR is the first big collaboration between NASA and ISRO, certainly on RADAR but just in general as well. This is two frequency RADAR, it is an L-band 24 centimeter RADAR and S-band 13 centimeter. S-band is being built by ISRO and L-band by NASA.

The satellite is scheduled to be launched in 2021 using the Geo-synchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV).

The satellite will be used to take snapshots of the Earth, images of the motion of tectonic plates, of ice sheets, of agricultural land changes and forests. Also include natural disasters like earthquakes, volcano eruptions and sea level rise.

Read the full article here

This is an amazing opportunity for India to collaborate with US and vice versa, sharing technologies and developing more cost-effective space programs!

Capturing distant images without long lens

#science #space #telescope #lens #SAVI #Imaging

A few scientists have developed a camera that can capture detailed images of distant objects without using a long lens. The system is knows as SAVI (Synthetic Apertures for long-range, subdiffraction-limited Visible Imaging).

Like the technique used to achieve the ‘Matrix’ special effect, the images are taken from slightly different angles, but with one camera that is moved between shots instead of many fired in sequence. The prototype only works with coherent illumination sources such as lasers.

However, if you want an aperture as big as half a foot, you might need at least 30 glass surfaces to remove aberrations and create a focused spot. This will make the lens very  big and bulky.

Read the full article here

This is pretty neat. I wonder if this will be used in actual laboratories in the future.