Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday described the launch of the NISAR, an earth observation satellite collaboration between the ISRO and its American counterpart, NASA, as a "milestone" in global space collaboration.

After integration, IRIS was shipped to India for integration into the NISAR satellite at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC) in Bengaluru. URSC finished NISAR before ISRO moved the satellite to the launch site, and the payload arrived at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on June 12.

Unlike optical sensors, the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) at the heart of the Nisar mission doesn’t rely on visible light. SAR uses microwaves, allo