NASA calls it the most advanced radar system it has ever launched, but the world’s most accomplished space agency couldn’t have pulled it off if not for a partnership with its Indian counterpart.
The first-of-its-kind NISAR satellite will provide information for disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, agricultural management and other uses by producing a dynamic, three-dimensional view of Earth in unprecedented detail, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. NISAR stands for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. ISRO is the Indian Space Research Organisation.
NISAR launched in July 2025 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in southeastern India aboard an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket. The pickup truck-sized satellite can detect the movement of land and ice surfaces down to a centimeter. It will complete about 14 orbits per day, allowing for repeated observations of the same locations, while circling from pole to pole in low Earth orbit.
“This success is demonstrating international teamwork between two spacefaring nations,” V. Narayanan, chairman of the ISRO, told a space center audience. “The data is not going to be used by one or two countries — the entire globe is going to benefit from this great accomplishment.”
Signals from synthetic aperture radar can pass through clouds and darkness, so they are ideal for continuous monitoring of Earth’s surface. NISAR’s dual radars, one from NASA and one from the ISRO, will generate more data per day than any previous Earth observation satellite from either agency, the JPL said — the equivalent of about 20 million high-resolution photos.