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Mahesh

18/12/22 08:20 AM IST

NASA Launches New Mission To Survey Nearly All Water On Earth Surface

In News
  • NASA launched its latest Earth science satellite recently that will track nearly all the water on surface of Earth.
SWOT Mission
  • The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission is a satellite altimeter jointly developed and operated by NASA and CNES (French space agency) in partnership with the space agencies of the UK and Canada.
  • The mission’s objective is to make the world’s first-ever global survey of the Earth’s surface water, capable of observing the finer details of the ocean surface topography and measuring the changes in the terrestrial surface water bodies.
  • It will provide the first truly global observation of the changes in water levels, stream slopes and inundation extents in rivers, lakes and floodplains.
  • The satellite can measure the height of water in freshwater bodies and the ocean on more than 90 percent of the Earth’s surface.
  • It can also observe ocean circulation at unprecedented scales of 15 to 25 km, which is an order of magnitude that is finer than current satellites.
  • The satellite will start collecting data in around six months after undergoing a series of checks and calibrations.
  • Once operational, it will cover the entire Earth’s surface between 78 degrees south and 78 degrees north latitude at least once every 21 days. It will send back some 1 terabyte of unprocessed data each day.
  • It is equipped with an instrument called the Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn), which bounces radar pulses off the surface of the water and receives the return signal using 2 antennas on either side of the spacecraft.
Source- The Hindu

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