India, July 22 -- After more than a decade of collaboration between Isro and NASA, the NASA Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), to study the Earth's ecosystems and natural hazards will be launched on July 30, the Indian space agency said on Monday.

The first joint Earth observation satellite by the two space agencies will lift off on Isro's GSLV-F16 at 5:40pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, and placed into a 743km sun-synchronous orbit.

According to NASA, $1.2bn is the budget for NISAR with roughly a 50-50 partnership with Isro. It will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies to measure changes in the Earth's surface less than a centimeter across.

"The satellite will scan the entire gl...