ISRO begins the countdown for the launch NISAR satellite using the GSLV-F16 rocket

The Indian Space Research Organisation ( ISRO) on Tuesday at 2:10 pm began the countdown for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar ( NISAR) satellite, which will be launched on Wednesday at 5:40 pm using the GSLV-F16 rocket.

The is being sent to scan the entirety of Earth every 12 days and provide high-resolution, day-and-night, all-weather imagery across a 242 km swath. It also aims to support climate change research, disaster response, and Earth science studies.

"We are going to launch the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite through the GSLV-S16 rocket by July 30th," said ISRO chairman Dr V Narayanan.

The satellite features NASA's L-band and ISRO's S-band radar to track surface changes with centimeter-level precision. It will systematically map Earth's surface, monitoring dynamic processes like glacier retreat, vegetation changes, and earthquakes.

NISAR will deliver high-resolution data crucial for monitoring natural disasters, environmental degradation, and infrastructure stress.

The GSLV-F16/NISAR Mission stems from a decade of technical cooperation between the two teams of ISRO and NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, US.

According to ISRO, the mission has got a lot of firsts. It is the first mission to carry dual-band radar satellite, a GSLV rocket will carry a satellite to be placed in Sunsynchronous Orbit (unlike PSLV rockets) and it is the first ISRO-NASA Earth Observation Mission.

Weighing 2,392 kg, the satellite would observe the earth with a swath of 242 km and high spatial resolution, using SweepSAR technology for the first time, ISRO said.

Some of the other applications are ship detection, shoreline monitoring, storm characterisation, changes in soil moisture, mapping and monitoring of surface water resources and disaster response, the space agency said.

NISAR will provide scientific information about the Earth's processes and it would study key changes in Earth's land and ice. The mission would also be more powerful than previous Synthetic Aperture Radar missions as it will monitor parts of Earth which are not previously covered.

(With agency inputs)