India and the US on Wednesday marked their maiden space collaboration with the successful flight of a GSLV rocket that placed an earth observation satellite, jointly developed by the two space agencies, in a precise orbit.
ISRO’s GSLV F-16 injected NISAR — NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, into the intended Sun Synchronous Polar Orbit (SSPO), after a flight of about 19 minutes and around 745 km. GSLV “successfully injected NISAR in designated orbit,” ISRO said.
Wednesday’s accomplishment follows the unsuccessful PSLV-C61/EOS-09 Mission on May 18, where a faulty PSLV of ISRO failed to deliver the earth observation satellite in the desired orbit. After successfully launching similar satellites — Resourcesat and RISAT series which were operationally focused on India, ISRO through the NISAR mission is embarking on a journey to study planet Earth.
At the end of the 27.30 hour countdown, the 51.7 metre tall launch vehicle carrying the 2,393 kg satellite majestically lifted-off from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, situated about 135 km east of Chennai at 5.40 pm on Wednesday.
Post the separation from the rocket, the scientists would embark on commissioning the satellite which would take “several days” to position it and meet the mission objectives.
According to ISRO, the S-band Radar system, data handling and high-speed downlink system, the spacecraft and the launch system are developed by the national space agency. The L-band Radar system, high speed downlink system, the Solid State Recorder, GPS receiver, the 9m Boom hoisting the 12m reflector are delivered by US-based National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA).
“Further, ISRO is responsible for the satellite commanding and operations. NASA will provide the orbit maneuver plan and RADAR operations plan. NISAR mission will be aided with ground station support of both ISRO and NASA for downloading of the acquired images, which after the necessary processing will be disseminated to the user community,” it said.
The data acquired through S-band and L-bandR from a single platform will help the scientists to understand the changes happening to Earth. According to ISRO, the NISAR mission’s primary objectives are to study land and ice deformation, land ecosystems, and oceanic regions in areas of common interest to the US and Indian scientific communities. The mission would help in measuring the woody biomass, track changes in the extent of active crops, understand the changes in wetlands extent among others. The mission life of NISAR is 5 year.
NASA said the data from the NISAR mission would provide critical insights to help Governments and decision-makers plan for natural and human-caused hazards. NISAR can help with hazard-monitoring efforts and potentially give decision- makers more time to prepare for a possible disaster.
The RADAR satellite would provide a 3D view of the Earth’s land and ice and through its ability to see through clouds and light rain, day and night, the satellite would enable data users to continuously monitor earthquake and landslide prone areas and determine how quickly glaciers and ice sheets are changing.
The data collected from the satellite would also offer an unprecedented coverage of Antarctica, an information that would help with studying how the continent’s ice sheet changes over time. Significantly, NISAR is the most advanced radar system ever launched by NASA or ISRO and it would generate more data on a daily basis than any previous Earth satellites launched by them.
The NISAR mission would help the two space agencies to monitor ecosystems around the world and the L band penetrates deep into forest canopies, providing insights into forest structure, while the S-band radar is monitoring crops. The NISAR data would help researchers assess how forests, wetlands and agricultural areas change over time.
The NISAR mission also signifies the deepening cooperation between India and US in the space domain. Following the bilateral Summit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US President Donald Trump in Washington DC in February 2025, both the leaders hailed 2025 as a pioneering year for civil space cooperation between the two countries.
Earlier this year, a NASA-ISRO effort through AXIOM realized sending the first Indian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS). Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla visited the International Space Station (ISS) from June 25 to July 15.
In February this year, Modi and Trump also called for more collaboration in space exploration, including on long duration human spaceflight missions, spaceflight safety and sharing of expertise and professional exchanges in emerging areas, including planetary protection. They also committed to further commercial space collaboration through industry engagements in conventional and emerging areas, such as connectivity, advanced spaceflight, satellite and space launch systems, space sustainability, space tourism and advanced space manufacturing.