India-US Space Cooperation: NISAR—Earth Science Satellite | NASA

India-US Space Cooperation: NISAR—Earth Science Satellite | NASA

NISAR Earth science satellite enclosed in ISRO GSLV-F16 rocket fairing—a protective shell that surrounds the payload of a rocket during its ascent into space. The fairing shields the payload from aerodynamic forces, temperature changes, and debris during the launch and ascent phases.

NISAR Earth science satellite before being enclosed in the rocket fairing

Pre-launch thermal and vacuum testing of the NISAR Earth science satellite

Pre-launch thermal and vacuum testing of the NISAR Earth science satellite

ISRO-NASA teams preparing NISAR for launch

ISRO GSLV-F16 rocket with NISAR Earth science satellite launch payload at ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India

ISRO GSLV-F16 rocket with NISAR

ISRO GSLV-F16 rocket being transported to the launch pad with NISAR atop

🌍A new Earth science satellite will soon provide insights into natural hazards, ecosystems, agriculture, and other fields of study that affect communities around the globe. The NISAR mission is a collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It will use radar to track Earth’s changing surface in fine detail.

Short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), NISAR features an advanced radar system with two instrumentsone from ISRO and one built at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Using radar enables NISAR to map Earth’s land and ice surfaces day or night, regardless of whether skies are cloudy or clear. 

🚀NISAR will launch from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. On July 30, 2025 at 17:40 IST, ISRO’s GSLV-F16 will launch NISAR.

🛰️ NISAR will scan the entire globe every 12 days, providing high-resolution, all-weather, day-and-night data. It can detect even subtle changes in Earth’s surface—like ground deformation, ice sheet shifts, and vegetation dynamics.

The mission will support many critical applications including sea ice monitoring, ship detection, storm tracking, soil moisture changes, surface water mapping, and disaster response.

🤝 A milestone in over a decade of collaboration between ISRO & NASA/JPL.

Launch is targeted for July 2025. 

Follow https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/nisar for the latest updates.

For more information on the NISAR mission, visit: https://nasa.gov/nisa

NISAR is the first-ever collaboration between NASA and ISRO on an Earth-observing mission. JPL, managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. ISRO is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.

To learn more about NISAR, visit: 
https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ISRO
Image Dates: July 21, 2025

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