ISRO-NASA’s dual-band radar satellite readies for launch, integrating L- and S-band SAR to deliver high-precision Earth surface and subsurface mapping.
India and the United States are set to launch a pioneering satellite mission, NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar), aimed at monitoring changes to the Earth’s land, ice, vegetation and ocean surfaces. Scheduled for liftoff on 30 July 2025 aboard the GSLV Mk-II rocket from ISRO’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre, the satellite will track everything from earthquakes and landslides to melting glaciers and forest biomass.
This Radar system will be placed 747 km above Earth’s surface, in a sun-synchronous polar orbit.
Jointly developed by ISRO and NASA, NISAR is the world’s first Earth observation mission using dual-frequency radar. It houses L-band radar from NASA and S-band radar from ISRO, operating together on a single platform. These Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR) use a 12-metre reflector mounted on a 9-metre deployable boom to capture high-resolution, wide-swath images of the Earth every 12 days.
NISAR is set to study tectonic activity, coastal erosion, crop mapping, aquifer changes, and ice sheet dynamics. With a resolution range of 5 to 100 metres and a swath of around 240 km, it will deliver detailed, polarimetric and interferometric data. This will help for a better understanding of the Earth’s crust movements and ecological changes, and will also benefit agricultural planning and climate monitoring.
The satellite weighs approximately 2,400 kg and is built on ISRO’s I-3K satellite bus. While ISRO is in charge of satellite operations and the S-band radar system, NASA leads the L-band radar and boom system development. Data from both bands will be freely accessible to researchers worldwide.
Post-launch, the satellite will undergo a 90-day commissioning phase for testing and calibration. Once operational, it will enter a five-year science mission, with coordinated manoeuvres and observation plans developed by ISRO and NASA.
