India Launches NISAR Satellite, a Historic NASA-ISRO Collaboration, from Sriharikota

In a landmark achievement for space cooperation between India and the United States, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite was successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on Wednesday evening. The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)-F16 lifted off at 5:40 p.m. from the second launch pad, deploying the earth observation satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit just 18 minutes later.

ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan confirmed the success of the mission, stating, “The GSLV-F16 has accurately injected the 2,392 kg NISAR satellite into its designated orbit.”

First-Ever Joint Satellite Mission

NISAR marks the first satellite mission jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the U.S. space agency NASA. With a planned mission life of five years, NISAR is set to revolutionize earth observation capabilities.

Casey Swails, Deputy Associate Administrator at NASA, emphasized the satellite's global significance: “NISAR will empower decision-makers with tools to manage infrastructure, respond swiftly to natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, and optimize agricultural planning.”

Around-the-Clock Earth Monitoring

The NISAR satellite is designed to provide global data every 12 days, regardless of weather or time of day. Its all-weather, day-and-night imaging capabilities will support a diverse range of applications including tracking ground deformations, monitoring vegetation changes, observing ice sheet dynamics, detecting ships, mapping shorelines, assessing storm conditions, and managing water resources.

NASA confirmed that mission control had received a full signal acquisition from the spacecraft.

Technological Milestones

NISAR is the world’s first satellite to carry dual-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems — NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band — mounted on a 12-metre mesh reflector antenna built by NASA. The satellite also uses ISRO’s I3K satellite bus and is equipped with a 242-km swath width and high-resolution SweepSAR imaging.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed the radar systems and structural components, while ISRO contributed the spacecraft bus, solar arrays, S-band radar, and launch services.

Mission Timeline and Phases

The NISAR mission will unfold over several stages — launch, deployment, commissioning, and science operations.

Following the successful launch phase, the deployment phase will see the unfurling of the 12-metre antenna, positioned nine metres from the satellite using a complex deployable boom. This process will begin on the tenth day after launch.

The commissioning phase, lasting 90 days, will involve thorough calibration and system checks to ready the satellite for full science operations. Once this is complete, NISAR will enter the final science phase, during which it will maintain a precise orbit and collect scientific data for five years.

Extensive calibration and validation procedures are planned to ensure high-quality data output.

ISRO's Resurgence After Setbacks

This successful launch marks a significant comeback for ISRO, following a series of recent challenges. The PSLV-C61/EOS-09 mission in May 2025 was aborted due to a technical issue. Earlier, in January, the GSLV-launched NVS-02 satellite failed to complete its orbit-raising manoeuvres due to a valve malfunction.

Notably, this is the first time a GSLV rocket has placed a satellite into a sun-synchronous polar orbit — a milestone for ISRO’s launch capabilities.

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