India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle F16 lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 8:10 a.m. Eastern Time on 30 July, inserting the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) spacecraft into a 747-kilometre Sun-synchronous orbit. ISRO confirmed precise stage performance and successful separation roughly 18 minutes after launch, marking the agency’s first delivery to this orbit with a GSLV rocket. NISAR is the first satellite jointly built and launched by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, capping a partnership formalised in 2014. Valued at about $1.5 billion—with NASA covering roughly 80 percent of the cost—the 2.3-tonne spacecraft carries radar hardware contributed by both agencies and represents the largest civil-space collaboration between the two countries. The mission combines NASA’s L-band and ISRO’s S-band synthetic aperture radars behind a 12-metre gold-mesh reflector that will deploy during a 90-day commissioning phase. Operating day and night through cloud cover, the dual-frequency system will map nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days, detecting shifts as small as one centimetre. It is expected to stream about 80 terabytes of data daily, which will be distributed freely via U.S. and Indian archives. Scientists anticipate that NISAR’s high-resolution measurements will sharpen forecasting and response to earthquakes, landslides and floods, track glacier retreat and ground subsidence, and support agricultural and infrastructure management. Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, called the spacecraft “the most sophisticated radar we’ve ever built,” adding that its observations will offer “critical, actionable information for communities worldwide.” NASA and ISRO plan a minimum three-year science campaign, with consumables on board to extend operations to at least five years.