As of July 20, the public can now access data from two advanced radar instruments onboard the NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite. The collaborative teams from the U.S. and India are set to provide processed files from the satellite’s L-band and S-band radars, enabling researchers and other users to effectively track the movement of Earth’s land and ice masses, monitor ecosystem changes in forests and wetlands, and enhance responses to natural disasters like landslides and earthquakes.
This announcement coincides with the upcoming first anniversary of the NISAR mission, with launching on July 30, 2025 from India’s Satish Dhawan Space Center. Since its launch, mission engineering and science teams have been diligently calibrating instruments, refining algorithms, and conducting observations across nearly all of Earth’s land and ice-covered regions twice every 12 days. During this period, the team has captured stunning imagery from around the globe, including urban landscapes, agricultural fields, landslides, earthquake impacts, and land subsidence in Mexico City.
Initial images from the satellite highlight the cracked and barren terrain of Antarctica. Interestingly, the patterns revealed also bear resemblance to a hummingbird.
This striking image reveals Nunatak Zaterjavsijisha, a mountain peak in East Antarctica that protrudes into the ice stream flowing towards the ocean. Here, moving glaciers encounter the mountain’s topography, which induces stress in the ice, leading to the formation of deep fissures known as crevasses. The crevasses are depicted as sharp green lines within the image.
“This image not only showcases captivating details but also offers insights into glacier movement. NISAR can penetrate snow and provide critical observations of Antarctic ice properties that optical images cannot reveal,” stated Seongsu Jeong, a signal analysis engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “NISAR allows us to visualize what’s hidden beneath the surface.”
Captured from L-band measurements taken in August 2025 during preliminary system tests, the image titled “Hummingbird” exemplifies this mission’s hallmark: visually compelling, detailed, and informative imaging.
The imagery’s colors reflect variations in how polarized microwave signals interact with the ice. NISAR transmits radar waves with horizontal polarization over Antarctica, and the returned signals’ direction provides insights into the surfaces that reflected them.
Signals with horizontal polarization likely reflect off smooth surfaces, depicted in magenta. Conversely, vertical polarization signals may reflect from irregular surfaces, such as crevasses, resulting in volumetric scattering displayed in green.
White areas signal strong backscattering of both magenta and green signals, indicating a blend of surface and volumetric scattering.
In optical light, the same scene would appear predominantly white due to snow and ice, with subtle shadows hinting at mountainous features and underlying textures suggesting the ice surface is not entirely smooth.
The NISAR satellite is the first free-flying space mission to host two radar instruments: an L-band system and an S-band system, each working at different wavelengths. The longer wavelength L-band can penetrate tree canopies, allowing for ground imaging, while the S-band captures canopy observations influenced by leaf sizes.
Recently, the Indian scientific team from ISRO Space Applications Center in Ahmedabad began releasing S-band data through the Bundi Portal.
On July 20, the U.S. mission team commenced releasing continuously calibrated products for all L-band measurements collected since June 17. The team aims to make the complete dataset available by year-end. Earlier limited releases of L-band data occurred in January (approximately 25 sample products) and February (thousands of pre-calibrated products).
Users can download the most recent files at the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center in Fairbanks, which hosts and distributes all NASA synthetic aperture radar data.
The scientific data output from the NISAR mission is substantial, reaching tens of terabytes daily, as the satellite frequently surveys nearly all land and ice surfaces on Earth. It operates within a few degrees of the South Pole in Antarctica up to 77.5 degrees north latitude above the Arctic Circle.
Managed by the California Institute of Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory led the U.S. component of the project and designed the satellite’s L-band SAR and antenna reflector. ISRO provided the spacecraft bus and S-band SAR.
The NISAR satellite is groundbreaking in carrying two SAR instruments at varying wavelengths, utilizing the spacecraft’s large drum reflector, measuring 39 feet (12 meters) wide, the largest radar antenna reflector ever deployed into space by NASA.
For further insights and updates on NISAR, please refer to the information below.
Media Contact
Andrew Wang / Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
626-379-6874 / 818-393-2433
[email protected] / [email protected]
2026-049
Source: www.nasa.gov