NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena helped build and test the radar payload of the $1.5 billion NISAR satellite.

NISAR is the first mission jointly developed by NASA and India’s space agency ISRO.

It launched on July 30, 2025, aboard India’s GSLV F-16 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

It is the first radar imaging satellite with two frequencies: NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band.

The satellite can track surface movements as small as a centimetre.

From about 747 km up, it maps the planet every 12 days using a 240-km-wide radar swath.

Its data helps monitor Himalayan glaciers, landslide zones, earthquakes, volcanoes and farmland changes.

Before launch, the payload passed through JPL clean rooms, where officials marked a send-off by breaking coconuts.

Read the full article for more details on NASA-JPL’s role in the NISAR mission.