The $1.5B Satellite That Can See the Ground Move

NASA and India's space agency built one radar satellite that can notice the ground rise or sink by about a centimetre, through cloud and in the dark. Mega Works breaks down NISAR: how synthetic aperture radar works, who paid and built what, the GSLV launch from Sriharikota, the 12-metre gold mesh antenna that unfolded in orbit, how two radars measure movement, and what it has already seen in 2026. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:37 Why radar 1:30 The partnership 2:45 Launch 3:28 The giant antenna 4:24 Two radars 5:14 Seeing movement 6:10 First images 6:59 What it has seen 7:48 The data 8:25 The honest limits Key facts: NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) launched 30 July 2025 on ISRO's GSLV-F16 from Sriharikota, into a 747 km sun-synchronous polar orbit, 14 orbits a day, exact 12-day repeat, swath about 240 km (NASA; ISRO). Cost about $1.5 billion: NASA about $1.2 billion, ISRO 788 crore rupees (about $91 million) (Reuters; NBC News; India Today). First free-flying mission with two radars: L-band 24 cm (NASA JPL) and S-band 9.4 cm (ISRO), sharing a 12 m gold-plated mesh reflector on a 9 m boom. Boom unfolded from 9 Aug 2025, reflector open 15 Aug 2025 (NASA JPL; ISRO). Can detect about 1 cm of vertical movement over half a tennis court of ground; about 80 TB of data a day; data free and open (NASA). First images: S-band 19 Aug 2025 (Godavari region, ISRO); L-band Mount Desert Island and North Dakota (21 and 23 Aug 2025, NASA). Floods in Mozambique (Jan 2026) and the Krasheninnikov lava flow (Dec 2025 to Aug 2026) shown by NASA in 2026. Limits: 12-day repeat and about 6-day average revisit; not designed as a live disaster-alert system (NASA; NDTV, 1 Sep 2026). Sources: NASA Science: NISAR mission overview and By the Numbers (30 July 2025) NASA / JPL news releases, 2025 and 2026 (first images, reflector deployment, volcano time-lapse) ISRO: NISAR mission pages, GSLV-F16 brochure, Mission enters Science Phase (28 Nov 2025) Reuters, NBC News, India Today (30-31 July 2025); NDTV (1 Sep 2026) NASA SVS 5661 (Mozambique floods), SVS 5675 (volcano time-lapse), NASA Earthdata (July 2026 data release) Footage and photos (each credited on screen): NASA / JPL / SVS media is public domain (NASA animations are labelled illustrative); ISRO photos under the Government Open Data License - India (GODL-India). Diagrams are original Megaworks graphics. Music: "Deep Bore", original Megaworks synthesis (no samples). Narration: Chatterbox-Turbo TTS (MIT), synthetic voice. Megaworks explains the biggest machines and the tech building the future. Subscribe for more. Mega Works, megaworks, Mega Works. #NISAR #ISRO #NASA #Space #Megaworks #MegaWorks #India #Satellite #Radar #FutureTech