NISAR: India-US Satellite to Revolutionize Earth Monitoring

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite, a $1.5 billion marvel dubbed the world’s costliest civilian Earth-imaging satellite, is poised for launch on July 30, 2025, at 5:40 PM IST from Sriharikota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. This groundbreaking Indo-US collaboration, the first of its kind, will deploy a dual-frequency radar—NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band—integrated with a 12-meter unfurlable mesh antenna on ISRO’s modified I3K bus. Weighing 2,392 kg, NISAR will orbit at 743 km in a Sun-synchronous orbit, scanning Earth every 12 days with a 242-km swath using SweepSAR technology for high-resolution, all-weather imaging.

NISAR’s mission is to map Earth’s land and ice surfaces, detecting millimeter-scale changes in ecosystems, ice sheets, and seismic zones. “We can make 3D movies of Earth’s motions,” said NASA’s Dr. Paul Rosen, highlighting its ability to monitor earthquakes, landslides, and glacial lake outbursts, particularly in the Himalayas. Its open-data policy ensures global access to 80 terabytes of daily data, aiding climate modeling and disaster management.

ISRO Chairman V Narayanan emphasized its global impact: “It will benefit India, the US, and the entire world.” The GSLV-F16 rocket, despite past concerns, was chosen for its proven reliability. This launch, a decade in the making, underscores deepening Indo-US ties, with Prime Minister Modi and President Trump hailing it as a milestone in civil space cooperation.

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