NASA-ISRO Earth Observation Satellite Launched in India

• The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite was successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

• The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)-F16 rocket successfully injected the satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit.

• The NISAR satellite, with a mission life of five years, is the first jointly developed satellite by ISRO and the U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

• The satellite will provide all-weather, day-and-night data at 12-day intervals and enable a wide range of applications.

• It will observe earth with a swathe of 242 km and high spatial resolution, using SweepSAR technology for the first time.

• Further applications include sea ice classification, ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm characterisation, changes in soil moisture, mapping and monitoring of surface water resources, and disaster response.