Surface Water Ocean Topography Mission

The Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission is a proposed NASA mission to make the first global survey of Earth’s surface water. It is one of 15 missions that the 2007 National Research Council’s decadal survey of Earth science recommends NASA implement in the coming decade. [cite web |url=http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11820&page=81|title=Earth Science and Applications from Space:National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond]

SWOT is being developed by an international group of hydrologists and oceanographers to provide a better understanding of the world's oceans and its terrestrial surface waters. [cite web |url=http://www.earthsciences.osu.edu/water/publications/EOS_WATERHM_2007.pdf|title=Measuring Global Oceans and Terrestrial Freshwater from Space] It will give scientists their first comprehensive view of Earth’s freshwater bodies from space and more much detailed measurements of the ocean surface than ever before. [cite web |url=http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/features/200809-1b.html|title= Following the Water with the Ocean Surface Topography Mission ]

SWOT is collaboration between NASA and CNES, the French space agency. It builds on the very successful 25-year partnership between the two agencies to use radar altimetry to measure the surface of the ocean that began with the TOPEX/Poseidon mission.

The SWOT mission is based on a new type of radar called Ka-band radar interferometery. The satellite will fly two radar antennae at either end of a 10-meter (33-foot) mast, allowing it to measure the elevation of the surface along a 120- kilometer (75-mile)-wide swath below. The new radar system is smaller but similar to the one that flew on NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, which made high-resolution measurements of Earth’s land surface in 2000. [cite web |url=http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/|title=NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission]

The scientists and engineers working on the project plan to finalize the mission’s science goals and mission requirements by the end of 2008 in preparation for a mission concept review next spring.

References

External links

* [http://bprc.osu.edu/water/index.php Surface Water Ocean Topography project web site]
* [http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov Ocean Surface Topography from Space web site]