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.

NASA announced Wednesday it, in a partnership with the Indian Space Research Organization, has launched a radar system to map Earth as never before.

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.