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Forest measuring satellite passes tests with flying colours
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA/Lori Losey
The best way to solve a mystery is by gathering evidence and building a case. That’s exactly what NASA researchers are doing with a series of research flights aimed at advancing a sensor for supersonic parachutes. The clues they find could help make these parachutes more reliable and safer for delivering scientific instruments and payloads to Mars.
These investigative research flights are led by the EPIC (Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy) team at NASA’s Armstrong Fight Research Center in Edwards, California. During a June flight test, a quadrotor aircraft, or drone, air-launched a capsule that deployed a parachute equipped with a sensor. The flexible, strain-measuring sensor attached to the parachute did not interfere with the canopy material, just as the EPIC team had predicted. The sensors also provided data, a bonus for planning upcoming tests.
“Reviewing the research flights will help inform our next steps,” said Matt Kearns, project manager for EPIC at NASA Armstrong. “We are speaking with potential partners to come up with a framework to obtain the data that they are interested in pursuing. Our team members are developing methods for temperature testing the flexible sensors, data analysis, and looking into instrumentation for future tests.”
The flight tests were a first step toward filling gaps in computer models to improve supersonic parachutes. This work could also open the door to future partnerships, including with the aerospace and auto racing industries.
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) funds the EPIC work through its Entry Systems Modeling project at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. The capsule and parachute system were developed by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA Armstrong interns worked with Langley to build and integrate a similar system for testing at NASA Armstrong. An earlier phase of the work focused on finding commercially available flexible strain sensors and developing a bonding method as part of an STMD Early Career Initiative project.
NASA researchers Paul Bean, center, and Mark Hagiwara, right, attach the capsule with parachute system to the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy test experiment on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering science instruments and payloads to Mars.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Derek Abramson, left, and Justin Link, right, attach an Alta X drone to the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy test experiment on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Abramson is NASA chief engineer at the center’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory, where Link also works as a pilot for small uncrewed aircraft systems. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering science instruments and payloads to Mars.NASA/Christopher LC Clark An Alta X drone is positioned at altitude for an air launch of the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy test experiment on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering science instruments and payloads to Mars.NASA/Christopher LC Clark The parachute of the Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy test experiment deploys following an air launch from an Alta X drone on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering science instruments and payloads to Mars.NASA/Christopher LC Clark The Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy project team examines a capsule and parachute following an air launch from an Alta X drone on June 4, 2025, at NASA’s Armstong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. NASA researchers are developing technology to make supersonic parachutes safer and more reliable for delivering science instruments and payloads to Mars.NASA/Christopher LC Clark Share
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Last Updated Jul 29, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactJay Levinejay.levine-1@nasa.gov Related Terms
Ames Research Center Armstrong Flight Research Center Flight Innovation Langley Research Center Space Technology Mission Directorate Technology Explore More
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By NASA
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India’s southeastern coast at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:40 a.m. IST), July 30, 2025.Credit: ISRO Carrying an advanced radar system that will produce a dynamic, three-dimensional view of Earth in unprecedented detail, the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite has launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Jointly developed by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and a critical part of the United States – India civil-space cooperation highlighted by President Trump and Prime Minister Modi earlier this year, the satellite can detect the movement of land and ice surfaces down to the centimeter. The mission will help protect communities by providing unique, actionable information to decision-makers in a diverse range of areas, including disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, and agricultural management.
The satellite lifted off aboard an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket at 8:10 a.m. EDT (5:10 p.m. IST), Wednesday, July 30. The ISRO ground controllers began communicating with NISAR about 20 minutes after launch, at just after 8:29 a.m. EDT, and confirmed it is operating as expected.
“Congratulations to the entire NISAR mission team on a successful launch that spanned across multiple time zones and continents in the first-ever partnership between NASA and ISRO on a mission of this sheer magnitude,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Where moments are most critical, NISAR’s data will help ensure the health and safety of those impacted on Earth, as well as the infrastructure that supports them, for the benefit of all.”
From 464 miles (747 kilometers) above Earth, NISAR will use two advanced radar instruments to track changes in Earth’s forests and wetland ecosystems, monitor deformation and motion of the planet’s frozen surfaces, and detect the movement of Earth’s crust down to fractions of an inch — a key measurement in understanding how the land surface moves before, during, and after earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides.
“ISRO’s GSLV has precisely injected NISAR satellite into the intended orbit, 747 kilometers. I am happy to inform that this is GSLV’s first mission to Sun-synchronous polar orbit. With this successful launch, we are at the threshold of fulfilling the immense scientific potential NASA and ISRO envisioned for the NISAR mission more than 10 years ago,” said ISRO Chairman V Narayanan. “The powerful capability of this radar mission will help us study Earth’s dynamic land and ice surfaces in greater detail than ever before.”
The mission’s two radars will monitor nearly all the planet’s land- and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days, including areas of the polar Southern Hemisphere rarely covered by other Earth-observing radar satellites. The data NISAR collects also can help researchers assess how forests, wetlands, agricultural areas, and permafrost change over time.
“Observations from NISAR will provide new knowledge and tangible benefits for communities both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Karen St. Germain, director, Earth Science division at NASA Headquarters. “This launch marks the beginning of a new way of seeing the surface of our planet so that we can understand and foresee natural disasters and other changes in our Earth system that affect lives and property.”
The NISAR satellite is the first free-flying space mission to feature two radar instruments — an L-band system and an S-band system. Each system is sensitive to features of different sizes and specializes in detecting certain attributes. The L-band radar excels at measuring soil moisture, forest biomass, and motion of land and ice surfaces, while S-band radar excels at monitoring agriculture, grassland ecosystems, and infrastructure movement.
Together, the radar instruments will enhance all of the satellite’s observations, making NISAR more capable than previous synthetic aperture radar missions. Unlike optical sensors, NISAR will be able to “see” through clouds, making it possible to monitor the surface during storms, as well as in darkness and light.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California provided the L-band radar, and ISRO’s Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad developed the S-band radar. The NISAR mission marks the first time the two agencies have co-developed hardware for an Earth-observing mission.
“We’re proud of the international team behind this remarkable satellite. The mission’s measurements will be global but its applications deeply local, as people everywhere will use its data to plan for a resilient future,” said Dave Gallagher, director, NASA JPL, which manages the U.S. portion of the mission for NASA. “At its core is synthetic aperture radar, a technology pioneered at NASA JPL that enables us to study Earth night and day, through all kinds of weather.”
Including L-band and S-band radars on one satellite is an evolution in SAR airborne and space-based missions that, for NASA, started in 1978 with the launch of Seasat. In 2012, ISRO began launching SAR missions starting with Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1), followed by RISAT-1A in 2022, to support a wide range of applications in India.
In the coming weeks, the spacecraft will begin a roughly 90-day commissioning phase during which it will deploy its 39-foot (12-meter) radar antenna reflector. This reflector will direct and receive microwave signals from the two radars. By interpreting the differences between the two, researchers can discern characteristics about the surface below. As NISAR passes over the same locations twice every 12 days, scientists can evaluate how those characteristics have changed over time to reveal new insights about Earth’s dynamic surfaces.
The NISAR mission is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO. Managed for the agency by Caltech, NASA JPL leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA also is providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem.
Space Applications Centre Ahmedabad, ISRO’s lead center for payload development, is providing the mission’s S-band SAR instrument and is responsible for its calibration, data processing, and development of science algorithms to address the scientific goals of the mission. U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, which leads the ISRO components of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus. The launch vehicle is from ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, launch services are through ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre, and satellite operations are by ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network. National Remote Sensing Centre in Hyderabad is responsible for S-band data reception, operational products generation, and dissemination.
To learn more about NISAR, visit:
https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov
-end-
Karen Fox / Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 30, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) Earth Science Earth Science Division Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate View the full article
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By European Space Agency
Europe’s forests play a crucial role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but research led by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has found their capacity to absorb carbon dioxide has declined in the past decade.
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By European Space Agency
The journey to launch is picking up pace for Europe’s MetOp Second Generation weather satellite – which hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-5 as part of its instrument package. Specialists at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou have completed the critical and hazardous task of fuelling the satellite, marking a major milestone in its final preparations for liftoff.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA researcher Darren Nash monitors experimental communications equipment on NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 during a flight test over NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on April 17, 2025.NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna NASA engineers are exploring how the technology used in existing cellphone networks could support the next generation of aviation.
In April and May, researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland built two specialized radio systems to study how well fifth-generation cellular network technology, known as 5G, can handle the demands of air taxi communications.
“The goal of this research is to understand how wireless cellphone networks could be leveraged by the aviation industry to enable new frontiers of aviation operations,” said Casey Bakula, lead researcher for the project, who is based at Glenn. “The findings of this work could serve as a blueprint for future aviation communication network providers, like satellite navigation providers and telecommunications companies, and help guide the Federal Aviation Administration’s plan for future advanced air mobility network requirements in cities.”
Instead of developing entirely new standards for air taxi communications, NASA is looking to see if the aviation industry could leverage the expertise, experience, and investments made by the cellular industry towards the development of reliable, secure, and scalable aviation networks. If 5G networks could provide an “80% solution” to the challenge, researchers can focus on identifying the remaining 20% that would need to be adapted to meet the needs of the air taxi industry.
NASA researchers Darren Nash, left, and Brian Kachmar review signal data captured from experimental communications equipment onboard NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 on April 17, 2025.NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna 5G networks can manage a lot of data at once and have very low signal transmission delay compared to satellite systems, which could make them ideal for providing location data between aircraft in busy city skies. Ground antennas and networks in cities can help air taxis stay connected as they fly over buildings, making urban flights safer.
To conduct their tests, NASA researchers set up a system that meets current 5G standards and would allow for future improvements in performance. They placed one radio in the agency’s Pilatus PC-12 aircraft and set up another radio on the roof of Glenn’s Aerospace Communications Facility building. With an experimental license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct flights, the team tested signal transmissions using a radio frequency band the Federal Communications Commission dedicated for the safe testing of drones and other uncrewed aircraft systems.
During testing, NASA’s PC-12 flew various flight patterns near Glenn. The team used some of the flight patterns to measure how the signal could weaken as the aircraft moved away from the ground station. Other patterns focused on identifying areas where nearby buildings might block signals, potentially causing interference or dead zones. The team also studied how the aircraft’s angle and position relative to the ground station affected the quality of the connection.
These initial tests provided the NASA team an opportunity to integrate its new C-Band radio testbed onto the aircraft, verify its basic functionality, and the operation of the corresponding ground station, as well as refine the team’s test procedures. The successful completion of these activities allows the team to begin research on how 5G standards and technologies could be utilized in existing aviation bands to provide air-to-ground and aircraft-to-aircraft communications services.
Experimental communications equipment is secure and ready for flight test evaluation in the back of NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on April 17, 2025. NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna In addition to meeting these initial test objectives, the team also recorded and verified the presence of propeller modulation. This is a form of signal degradation caused by the propeller blades of the aircraft partially blocking radio signals as they rotate. The effect becomes more significant as aircraft fly at the lower altitudes air taxis are expected to operate. The airframe configuration and number of propellers on some of the new air taxi models may cause increased propeller modulation effects, so NASA researchers will study this further.
NASA research will provide baseline performance data that the agency will share with the FAA and the advanced air mobility sector of the aviation industry, which explores new air transportation options. Future research looking into cellular network usage will focus on issues such as maximum data speeds, signal-to-noise ratios, and synchronization between aircraft and ground systems. Researchers will be able to use NASA’s baseline data to measure the potential of new changes or features to communications systems.
Future aircraft will need to carry essential communications systems for command and control, passenger safety, and coordination with other aircraft to avoid collisions. Reliable wireless networks offer the possibility for safe operations of air taxis, particular in cities and other crowded areas.
This work is led by NASAs Air Mobility Pathfinders project under the Airspace Operations and Safety Program in support of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission.
NASA Pilot Mark Russell emerges from NASA’s Pilatus PC-12 after mobile communication tests at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland on April 17, 2025. NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna Share
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Last Updated Jul 23, 2025 Related Terms
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