A formidable new radar satellite jointly developed by the United States and India launched Wednesday, designed to track subtle changes in Earth's land and ice surfaces and help predict both natural and human-caused hazards.

The satellite called NISAR — short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar — will operate from a near-polar-circling orbit 464 miles high. It will join dozens of Earth observation missions already in operation by the U.S. and India.

NISAR, built jointly by NASA and India’s space agency and launched on Wednesday, will use radar to monitor tiny changes across our planet’s land and icy regions.