Accessing NISAR Data
NISAR products are available through a variety of tools and services designed to support different workflows. Users can search, visualize, download, and analyze data through web applications such as Vertex and Earthdata Search or access data programmatically through APIs and cloud-based workflows.
To help users prepare for mission operations, ASF DAAC provides sample datasets ahead of the full mission release. Sample datasets include representative examples of NISAR product types, including GCOV and interferometric products. These datasets provide an opportunity to become familiar with product formats, metadata, and processing workflows before operational data are released.
Data Availability
In February 2026, the NISAR mission team released more than 100,000 pre-calibration Level 1 to Level 3 L-band data products. This data release captured a sampling of locations around the world and is meant to help users become familiar with the data products and develop workflows for accessing and working with large data volumes. The full global release of calibrated NISAR data products is scheduled for July 2026. An updated version of the NISAR processor is expected to be released fall 2026, after which the mission team will reprocess the forward stream data generated since July as well as back processing data acquired prior to July.
Urgent Response Data
NISAR Urgent Response (UR) data provide expedited access to imagery collected in response to natural disasters and other significant events. UR products are prioritized for downlink and processing, making data available more quickly to support science and disaster response activities.
UR products can be identified and accessed through dedicated collections and search filters. Because they are processed on an accelerated timeline, some processing inputs may be less precise than those used for standard products. UR products are later replaced by fully processed standard products. Find NISAR urgent response data using Vertex Search.
For more information on the Urgent Response products, see the NISAR Data User Guide.
NISAR Data Tools
Tools like Vertex, the ASF SearchAPI, asf_search, and Earthdata Search help users search for data, download it, and use it in their own projects. These tools support different workflows, from simple web searches to advanced, automated access.
NISAR data are stored in an AWS cloud bucket, which allows users to work directly with the data without downloading large files. For advanced users, direct S3 access makes it possible to process data in the cloud, saving time and computing resources.
See below the datasets table for a list of tools for working with NISAR data.