The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Tuesday said it was all set to launch NISAR satellite, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the Indian space agency and NASA that can detect even small changes in the Earth’s surface such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement and vegetation dynamics.

On July 30, at 5.40pm, NISAR or the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, which has been a decade in the making, will lift off aboard Isro’s GSLV-F16 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The life of the mission is five years.

GSLV-F16 is ready to carry NISAR into orbit. Final prep underway. Launch countdown has commenced at 14:10 hours today,” Isro posted on X on Tuesday evening.

At a pre launch news conference late Monday night, Phil Burella, NISAR project manager, said following a high level meeting between Isro and NASA, both teams agreed that the spacecraft, mission and launch vehicle were ready for lift off. So everybody gave a thumbs up and that’s great news,” said Burella. “The range looks good, the weather looks good.”