US and India launch historic joint mission that could change the way we see Earth
A first-of-its-kind satellite has been launched to track nearly imperceptible changes on Earth's surface, an effort that could aid in responses to natural disasters. Called the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission, or NISAR, the spacecraft is equipped with two kinds of synthetic aperture radar designed by the US space agency and the Indian Space Research Organization in the countries' first joint satellite project. The radar, pioneered by NASA to be used in space, works like conventional radar in that it uses microwaves to detect distant surfaces and objects. But advanced data processing enables the details to be seen at high resolution. NISAR was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on India's southeastern coast at 8:10 a.m. ET (5:40 p.m. IST) on Wednesday aboard an ISRO Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV-F16. The launch was streamed live on NASA+ and the agency's YouTube channel . The satellite will orbit Earth 14 times...