Recent earthquakes in Alaska and around the world have shown us how violently the Earth can sometimes move under our feet. In July 2025, NASA, in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organization, launched the NISAR satellite mission, which will enable us to monitor such events with unprecedented accuracy, helping us better understand many of the natural hazards that affect Alaskans daily.

NISAR will revolutionize how we monitor Earth. It will be able to monitor volcanoes, glaciers, sea ice, forests, and seismic zones independent of weather and daylight conditions. NISAR’s instruments will be able to measure movements of Earth down to a centimeter accuracy, an incredible feat for a sensor orbiting more than 800 kilometers away. NISAR will collect more free and open data than NASA currently holds in all of its archives.

In addition to an overview of NISAR itself, this talk will also highlight Alaska’s important role in this mission. Working closely with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, UAF’s Alaska Satellite Facility downlinks, archives, and distributes NISAR’s data to an international audience of scientists and decision-makers, all right here from Alaska. Supported by its talented local staff, ASF will become one of the world’s leading data centers.

Title: Introducing NISAR: NASA’s Biggest Earth Observation Mission
Speaker: Franz Meyer, Professor, UAF Geophysical Institute, Chief Scientist, Alaska Satellite Facility
Date: January 21, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM Alaska Standard Time (UTC -9)

To register: ACCAP website