'Deepening India-US partnership': FM Nirmala Sitharaman visits NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman visited the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland on Tuesday during her US visit. She was also accompanied by India's Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu. Ambassador Sandhu tweeted images from the Centre and wrote, "Important and informative visit by FM Nirmala Sitharaman to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center known for the Hubble & James Webb Telescopes. Space collaboration between ISRO and NASA is a key pillar of deepening India-US partnership!"

Director at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, Associate Center Director at NASA's GSFC Ray Rubilotta, and Astrophysicist Dr. Michelle Thaller gave presentations to Sitharaman about the various activities at the Centre. NASA's GSFC Hyperwall is a video wall capable of displaying multiple high-definition data visualisations and images at the same time across an arrangement of screens.

The visit comes after the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) received a send-off ceremony at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. NISAR is an Earth observation satellite that has been jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA under an agreement signed in 2014.

The Earth observation satellite will scan the globe every 12 days in its 3-year mission of imaging the Earth's land, ice sheets, and sea ice besides spotting warning signs of natural disasters like earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions.

Apart from imaging the Earth's various realms and spotting warnings for natural disasters, the NISAR will help in improving the understanding of carbon exchange via measuring groundwater levels, tracking flow rates of glaciers and ice sheets, and monitoring the planet's forest and agricultural regions.

ISRO will also utilise NISAR for agricultural mapping and monitoring of glaciers in the Himalayas, landslide-prone areas, and changes in the coastline.

(With agency inputs)

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