In a landmark achievement of global space cooperation, the United States and India successfully launched the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite on Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
The mission that surpassed $1.5 billion over a decade while developing will analyse the planetary changes with unprecedented precision. This will help to detect smallest surface movements even as small as centimeters.
The satellite weighing 2,392kg was launched from India’s Satish Dhawan Space centre. The space craft is the “first-of-its-kind satellite” that uses dual radar frequencies (NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band) allowing it to trace slightest shifts in land, ice sheets, and coastlines.
As reported by BBC, former NASA scientist, Mila Mitra asserted that the satellite will be shot into the “sun-synchronous polar orbit”, that means it will pass over the same areas of Earth at a regular interval, analysing and tracing changes to the surface of Earth.
By orbiting the same spot after every 12 days, it can track even slightest changes in it. With these repeated scans, scientists can have a rich data to conduct in-depth analysis to support disaster management and early responses and impacts of climate change.
By tracking minimal shifts, NISAR will provide crucial data on:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that have already sent two dozen observation satellites in space states NISAR is: "most sophisticated radar we've ever built” and that it will be able to spot the “minutest of changes anywhere in the world.”
The mission strengthened India’s rising leadership in space exploration, coming weeks after the country’s first astronaut mission to the International Space Station (AX-4) and following its historic 2023 Moon landing near the lunar south pole.
Indian Science Minister Jitendra Singh said: “NISAR is not just a satellite; it’s India’s scientific handshake with the world.”
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S.Somanth hailed the launch as “a defining moment in global space cooperation.”
Scientists claim that due to natural and human activities, the surface of Earth is constantly changing. Therefore, even slightest shifts are impacting the planet.
While talking to the pre-launch press conference in India, NASA’s director of Earth Sciences Karen St Germain said: “Some of these changes happen slowly, some abruptly, some are small while some are subtle.”
She further added: “With Nisar, we'll see the precursors to natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides and volcanoes; we'll see land subsidence and swelling, movements and deformations, melting of glaciers and ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica; and we'll see forest fires.”
While talking about its implications of human activities on changing Earth’s surface she said: “We'll also be able to spot human-induced land changes caused by farming and infrastructure projects such as buildings and bridges.”
The insights from the data collected by NISAR will help governments and researchers to offer actionable insights globally.
