ISRO is launching the highly anticipated NISAR mission today, July 30, at 5:40 PM from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. The GSLV-F16 rocket is ready on the launch pad, ISRO said.

ISRO launched on Wednesday a $1.5 billion, first-of-its-kind radar imaging satellite built in collaboration with NASA, deploying it to help enhance global monitoring of climate change and natural disasters.

Eyeing to study the planet Earth as a whole from a Sun-synchronous Orbit, the NISAR satellite is a combination of human skills and exchange of software and hardware between the two space agencies.