August 17, 2026

On August 4, 2026, ISRO and NASA jointly organised an event; “NISAR - One Year of Operations: Assessing Performance, Advancing Science, and Strengthening Partnership,” at ISTRAC/ISRO, Bengaluru, to commemorate the first on-orbit anniversary of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, launched by ISRO’s GSLV-F16 on July 30, 2025.

Chairman, ISRO/ Secretary, DoS, Dr.V. Narayanan, Directors of various ISRO Centres, senior officials from NASA/ JPL, senior officials of ISRO, and operational & science teams from ISRO, NASA & JPL participated in the event. Comprehensive presentations were made by teams across ISTRAC, NRSC, SAC, URSC, as well as NASA/ JPL, celebrating the strong ISRO-NASA partnership and reviewing the performance of the mission, data generation & dissemination, scientific results and way forward.

While paying tribute to successive leadership that shaped the course of the mission and appreciating the exceptional collaboration between ISRO & NASA that realised the advanced L & S band SAR imaging satellite; NISAR, Dr. V. Narayanan urged the scientific community to fully exploit the mission in addressing common scientific goals to deliver benefits to humanity.

Dr. Karen M. St. Germain, Earth Science Division Director, NASA HQ. acknowledged the global perspective of the NISAR mission and its unprecedented volume of data for better understanding of the Earth System. Mr. Keyur Patel, Associate Lab Director, JPL, emphasised that NISAR mission is the outcome of the partnership built for Earth Science & community benefit. Mr. Phil Barela, NASA/JPL Project Manager of NISAR mission termed the collaboration as a Partnership Beyond a Spacecraft.

The Science teams from NASA/ JPL and ISRO highlighted the science & applications derived from NISAR over the past one year. Dr. Paul Rosen, NISAR Project Scientist, JPL, showed how L-band SAR data from NISAR is observing the dynamics of ecosystem, cryosphere and solid earth. ISRO’s NISAR Science Team also highlighted the NISAR S-band SAR data usage for developing science products on forest above-ground biomass, surface soil moisture, active crops, ocean surface wind, mangrove cover, forest disturbance, surface deformation etc.

The event ended with a panel discussion amongst Dr. Prakash Chauhan; Director, NRSC/ISRO, Shri. R. Venkateswaran; Director, LEOS/ISRO, Shri M. R. Raghavendra; Director, ISTRAC/ISRO, Dr. Milind B Mahajan; Deputy Director, SAC/ISRO, Dr. Paul Rosen; NISAR Project Scientist, JPL, Ms. Kathleen Karika; Associate Administrator, Office of International & Inter-agency Relations (OIIR), NASA and Ms. Nandini Harinath; Deputy Director, ISTRAC/ISRO as moderator. The panel deliberated on the intricacies of processing of NISAR data, challenges faced during the development of the payload, pioneering science applications realised over a decade, joint science application plan and pathway for future collaboration between the agencies.

NISAR continues to systematically collect precious data to understand the Earth's dynamics to drive advancements across multiple scientific disciplines, including ecosystem, solid earth, cryosphere, hydrology, oceanography, coastal-processes, geoscience and disaster response.