ISRO established GIRI Radar System at Tirupati

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 21 March 2016 established the Gadanki Ionosphere Radar Interferometer (GIRI) near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
•    It was set up at the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory (NARL) which is an autonomous research institute of the Department of Space.
•    It is a 30 MHz radar system that will be engaged in meteor and space weather research in a comprehensive way.
•    It consists of a rectangular antenna array of 160 two-element Yagi-antenna, arranged in a 20x8 matrix, 20 transmitter units, 6 digital receivers including data processing systems, a radar controller, and a host computer.
•    Its primary objective is to carry out unattended observations towards studying the forcing from the sun like variation in solar flux, solar flare and magnetic storm on the ionosphere irregularities.
•    It also seeks to study unattended observations from the underneath atmosphere (e.g., waves generated by weather phenomena) on the ionosphere irregularities.
•    It will provide important information on the angular location of plasma irregularities during the onset phase and its relationship to background ionosphere state parameters and sunset terminator.
•    Investigations made using this facility are expected to improve the skill in Equatorial Plasma Bubble (EPB) forecasting which is detrimental for satellite based navigation/communication applications.
•    It is an autonomous society supported by Department of Space and is located at Gadanki near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
•    It is one of the specialized atmospheric research in the country to conduct basic atmospheric research, indigenous technology development for atmospheric probing and weather and climate modeling.
•    It regularly operates state-of-the-art MST radar, Rayleigh / Mie Lidar, Boundary Layer Lidar, Sodium Lidar, Lower Atmospheric Wind Profiler, Sodar and Dual frequency GPS receiver.
•    Its facilities are available for national and international scientists to conduct atmospheric research.
•    The proposed up-gradation of the upcoming active array MST radar into Incoherent Scatter Radar (ISR) will provide a unique opportunity for scientists from both home and abroad to conduct frontline atmospheric and ionosphere research.
•    With the ISR upgrade, NARL will become the first comprehensive low latitude observatory in the world.