NEW DELHI (dpa-AFX) - An Indo-US earth-tracking satellite, NISAR, is set to launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast Wednesday.
A collaboration between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation, the first-of-its-kind satellite will lift off aboard an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on a mission to scan nearly all the Earth's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days.
The launch, set for 8:10 a.m. ET, will be live telecast on NASA+ and the agency's YouTube channel.
With its two radar instruments - an S-band system provided by ISRO and an L-band system provided by NASA - the NISAR mission will provide high-resolution data to help decision-makers, communities, and scientists monitor major infrastructure, agricultural fields, and movement of land and ice surfaces.
NISAR is a critical part of a pioneering year for United States - India civil space cooperation, agreed by U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting in Washington in February. The NISAR launch will advance U.S. - India cooperation and benefit the U.S. in areas such as agriculture and preparation and response to disasters like hurricanes, floods, and volcanic eruptions, NASA said in a press release.
The NISAR mission is the first joint satellite mission between NASA and ISRO, marking a new chapter in the growing collaboration between the two space agencies. The launch of NISAR, years in the making, builds on a strong heritage of successful programs, including Chandrayaan-1 and the recent Axiom Mission-4, which saw ISRO and NASA astronauts living and working together aboard the International Space Station for the first time.
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