NISAR will be able to monitor "changes as small as a centimeter in any weather, and in both darkness and light."

The NISAR satellite was launched using ISRO's GSLV-F16 rocket, which was scheduled to place it into a 743-kilometre sun-synchronous orbit, almost 20 minutes after lift-off.

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.