A satellite tv for pc lifted off Friday from California on a mission to survey almost all our bodies of water on Earth, providing key insights on how they affect or are impacted by local weather change.
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite tv for pc, a billion-dollar challenge collectively developed by NASA and France’s area company CNES, took off at 1146 GMT atop a SpaceX rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
According to a press release from NASA, it’s going to begin gathering scientific information in about six months after present process checks and calibrations.
“SWOT will bring us a revolutionary advance in our understanding of how water moves around our planet,” stated Karen St. Germain, NASA’s Earth Science Division director, forward of the launch.
“We will be able to see detail in eddies and currents and circulation in the oceans that we have never been able to see before.”
She stated this may assist predict floods in areas with an excessive amount of water, and handle water in areas liable to drought.
Selma Cherchali, of the French area company CNES, informed a press convention on Tuesday that the satellite tv for pc represents a “revolution in hydrology. We are aiming to provide fine-scale observations ten times better than the current technology.”
From a peak of 890 kilometers (550 miles), SWOT can have the clearest view but of the world’s oceans, permitting it to trace the rise in sea ranges, in addition to rivers and lakes.
Researchers will be capable to get information on hundreds of thousands of lakes, reasonably than the few hundreds presently seen from area.
“We know with climate change that Earth’s water cycle is accelerating. What this means is that some locations have too much water, others don’t have enough,” stated Benjamin Hamlington, a NASA analysis scientist.
“We’re seeing more extreme droughts, more extreme floods, precipitation patterns are changing, becoming more volatile. So it’s really important that we try to understand exactly what is happening.”
The mission is supposed to final for 3 and a half years, however could possibly be prolonged till 5 years, or much more, stated SWOT’s challenge head at CNES, Thierry Lafon.
The US and French area businesses have labored collectively within the area for greater than 30 years. A earlier satellite tv for pc developed by the companions, TOPEX/Poseidon, improved understanding of ocean circulation and its impact on international local weather.
