NASA and ISRO's joint NISAR satellite, launched in July 2025, has released its first radar images, showcasing Earth's surface in remarkable detail. The dual-band radar system provides unprecedented insight into forests, wetlands, farmland, and urban areas. These images highlight NISAR's potential for monitoring ecosystems, agriculture, and natural disasters, reported NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's.

The L-band system uses a 10-inch (25-centimetre) wavelength that enables its signal to penetrate forest canopies and measure soil moisture as well as motion of ice surfaces and land down to fractions of an inch – a key measurement in understanding how the land surface moves before, during, and after earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides.

The S-band radar, provided by ISRO's Space Applications Centre, uses a 4-inch (10-centimetre) microwave signal that's more sensitive to small vegetation, which makes it effective at monitoring certain types of agriculture and grassland ecosystems.

Data used to create the image was collected during NISAR's commissioning phase, when the spacecraft's systems and instruments are powered on and tested.

The NISAR mission will begin science operations in November, roughly 90 days after its July 30, 2025, launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast.

Observations from NISAR will benefit humanity by helping researchers around the world better understand changes in our planet's surface, including its ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice.

It also will capture changes in forest and wetland ecosystems and track movement and deformation of our planet's crust by phenomena such as earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic activity.

The global and rapid coverage from NISAR will provide unprecedented support for disaster response, producing data to assist in mitigating and assessing damage, with observations before and after catastrophic events available in short time frames.

JPL