Avant

Extreme weather has tested New Zealand’s infrastructure and reshaped the way financial institutions think about land risk. Floods, slips and rising water tables have exposed weaknesses in how banks and insurers assess property stability. Traditional approaches that rely on council maps and historical claims data are no longer enough. An artistic representation of the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite orbiting above New Zealand. This geospatial data gives lenders, insurers and...

NISAR is a deliberate response to a number of traditional radar monitoring issues, as a global baseline monitoring system  that makes ground movement data available to everyone. NISAR satellite with deployed radar and solar arrays. (Source: NASA Science) What are the Benefits of NISAR Compared to Traditional SAR Dual-frequency capability Traditional satellites used a single radar band. NISAR combines L-band and S-band, so it can both penetrate vegetation and capture high-detail surface...

The NASA–ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR)  satellite is a joint mission between the United States space agency NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). NISAR satellite during assembly and testing. Source: ISRO The NISAR satellite was launched on 30 July 2025 at 17:40 IST (Indian Standard Time) aboard the GSLV-F16 rocket from India, NISAR is designed to measure subtle changes in Earth’s land and ice surfaces with unprecedented precision. The satellite’s dual-frequency radar...