NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have scheduled the launch of a joint Earth observation mission on July 30 this year, NASA said on Monday (21/7).
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite will be launched aboard ISRO's Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Center, located off the southeastern coast of India.
The mission marks a milestone in space cooperation between the United States and India. Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised NISAR as a key part of a pioneering year of US-India civil space cooperation.
NISAR will be the first satellite equipped with L-band and S-band synthetic aperture radar. NISAR is designed to scan nearly the entire Earth's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days, NASA said.
The satellite will monitor changes in terrestrial ecosystems, track the growth and retreat of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and measure tectonic shifts in the Earth's crust.
NASA said the mission data will be freely available to global users across all disciplines, with potential applications in disaster response, infrastructure monitoring, and agricultural planning.
