The countdown for the NISAR satellite mission began at 2.10 p.m. on Tuesday (July 29, 2025). The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) with the two,392-kg satellite is scheduled to elevate off from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 5.40 p.m. on Wednesday (July 30, 2025).
About 19 minutes after lift-off, the GSLV-F16 rocket will inject the NISAR satellite right into a 743-km sun-synchronous orbit. The NISAR satellite — NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite — will scan the Earth and supply all-weather, day-and-night knowledge at 12-day intervals, and allow a variety of purposes.
It is the primary joint satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Senior NASA officers stated that working with the ISRO on the mission has strengthened their relationship.
The Director of Earth Science, NASA Headquarters, Karen St. Germain stated, “Building a satellite on opposite sides of the world during a global pandemic was really hard, but it strengthened our relationship with ISRO. The collaboration, the cooperation, information sharing, and, frankly, joint learning between our two agencies is a foundation that we look forward to continuing to build upon.”
She added that NISAR is a mannequin for the subsequent technology of Earth statement functionality.
“India built the spacecraft bus and the S-band radar and is providing the launch vehicle, launch services, and satellite mission operations. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) built the L-band radar and the mission’s radar reflector and boom. NASA is also providing a high-rated communications subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and the payload data subsystem,” she added.
Phil Barela, NISAR challenge supervisor, JPL, stated that the 2 house companies learnt lots from one another within the final decade.
“We have been at this for over a decade with our partner, ISRO, and it has been a phenomenal journey. The amount that we have learned from each other during this period has just been phenomenal,” Mr. Barela stated.
He added that through the top of COVID-19 pandemic, round 65 ISRO engineers visited JPL to work on the mixing and conduct exams.
“Over the last two-and-a-half years, NASA has sent out over 175 engineers to ISRO’s facilities to keep the integration and tests going and get us ready for where we stand today and ready for launch. It has been a wonderful journey. I’m anticipating a lot of very happy people, not only in the U.S., but also in India,” he added.
