Prof. Rajat Garg, Assistant Professor at the School of Advanced Computing, has made significant contributions to global space research through his involvement in the NASA-ISRO NISAR mission.
From 2018 to 2021, he worked as a researcher on the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) project, one of the most advanced Earth-observation initiatives to date. He was instrumental in designing machine learning frameworks for the precise analysis of polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) data. This pioneering work laid a strong foundation for large-scale PolSAR data processing, enabling faster and more accurate classification of land cover and improved environmental surveillance.
Prof. Garg’s research excellence has been recognized with two prestigious honors: the Governor’s Research Award (Uttarakhand, 2021) and the Young Scientist Award from COSPAR, Paris (2022), a globally esteemed body for space science collaboration.
This work is now deeply embedded in the ongoing NISAR mission, officially launched on July 30, 2025 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India. Now orbiting Earth at 747 km, the satellite uses dual radar systems (NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band) to track dynamic changes on the planet, from earthquakes and glacier movements to deforestation and city expansion, with centimeter-level accuracy. Scanning nearly the entire globe every 12 days, the mission marks a critical leap forward in climate science, disaster response, agriculture, and urban planning.
