So SWOT is unique because it's one of those missions
that combines technology
really to enable new science.
We have not really had, particularly
for what we call hydrology, which is the surface water.
We haven't had those kind
of measurements available across the whole entire Earth
in a consistent form that's never been available.
It's it's going to be new information
for the global community,
which is going to enable exciting science.
We don't know
some of the science that this is going to actually produce,
but we know that it has tremendous capabilities
and it's probably going to lead to many new discoveries.
Yeah.
So SWOT really works on a new radar.
And what is what is a radar?
It's basically what we call an active measuring system
that's bouncing a pulse of energy from space
down to the surface on the water.
That surface, particularly the water, is very reflective.
So it's bouncing that signal back into space.
SWOT the satellite is going to receive that.
But the new technology in SWOT
is that we're going to be able to not only receive it back
and understand what one particular point
that we're measuring is, but also how it's moving.
So what's the slope
of that water that we're actually measuring?
So the height and the slope
and being able to do it in very high resolution,
higher accuracy and also a wide swath
so that we're able to measure large tracts over the Earth
in a relatively small amount of time.
SWOT is a Pathfinder mission
using new technology to address, I would say, transm...
transformative questions of climate change and its impact
on our environment.
In particular the ocean and surface water
on land.
SWOT will be observing
the elevation of water surface in the ocean, on the land.
In the ocean, we call the sea surface height
that will allow us to calculate
the speed and direction of ocean currents.
Over land, the water
surface height will allow us to assess
water storage in lakes and
the streamflow of rivers.
So SWOT observation basically address
two key elements of the Earth system in relation to climate
change: the energy and the water cycles.
NASA has 24 satellites and instruments on orbit today
looking back at the Earth to study
how the whole Earth works as a system.
From the atmosphere
to the oceans, land, ice and even the subsurface.
This year we're launching ten more instruments in missions
and SWOT is by far the most ambitious of these.
SWOT will give us an unprecedented view
of our planet's water system.
SWOT is going to
fundamentally change the way we understand the water cycle.
Our Earth is a water planet and the water
we need to live on land originates
in the ocean and it's delivered to us by the atmosphere
and it eventually returns back to the ocean.
Second to the air we breathe, water is fundamental for life,
and SWOT is going to help us understand
how to manage that precious resource in the future.
So when you want to predict future climate,
you want to start with the major players.
And since the Earth is the water planet,
ocean is where you start.
One of the critical climate question of our time
is to determine ocean's future capacity to effectively absorb
and release heat back to the atmosphere.
And you want know it on a wide spectrum of frequency and scales
which SWOT would be able to provide
for the first time, both the large scale
and the finest special scales possible that that
that we've ever seen before.
And this ability to predict even the smallest changes in
Earth energetics might be
the mission that give us the answer to this
most critical climate questions.
So one of the unique things about the SWOT
mission was the way in which we chose to do
to actually build the entire observatory.
It was done in two key pieces.
One of them was done at JPL with contributions from CNES.
They provided a radio frequency unit,
as well as the nadir altimeter
and the Canadian Space Agency, which provided high power
amplifiers for the wide swath radar that JPL was integrating.
What the goal there was to do to take all of those components
and integrate the payload at JPL,
do full up, integrate
environmental testing following the assembly of
the payload there
to do that testing there so that we
we put a lot of the risk behind us.
And then once we take that integrated payload,
we shipped it to France to our partners at Thales Alenia Space,
and they integrated it
to the spacecraft that they are building.
That complete observatory now is what is being tested
at the facility in Cannes
and that will be shipped back once all that testing is
complete, will be shipped back to the United States
for launch aboard a Falcon 9 and SpaceX.