NISAR is a joint Earth-observing mission between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) with the goal to make global measurements of the causes and consequences of land surface changes using advanced radar imaging. This mission concept and the resulting partnership are in response to the National Academy of Science’s 2007 survey of Earth observational priorities for the next decade, known as the decadal survey. One of the top priorities identified in this survey was to gain data and insight in three Earth science domains: ecosystems, deformation of Earth’s crust and cryospheric sciences.
The Alaska Satellite Facility (ASF) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) has been selected to archive the data from the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission. ASF will utilize NASA’s Earthdata Cloud, which leverages Amazon Web Services (AWS) for processing, storage and distribution of the data.
The NISAR satellite was launched July 30, 2025.