SWOT Satellite

SWOT Satellite Latest News

In a scientific first, NASA and Virginia Tech researchers successfully measured the speed and height of flood waves on U.S. rivers using SWOT satellite data.

About SWOT Satellite

• The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite, launched in 2022, is a joint mission of NASA and CNES (French Space Agency).
• It uses a specialised instrument called the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) to measure the height, width, and elevation of surface water bodies such as rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and oceans.
• SWOT offers high spatial resolution by bouncing microwaves off water surfaces and calculating return time, allowing dynamic water movement tracking.
• The satellite covers over 55% of large-scale global floods during their lifecycle through frequent Earth orbits.

What Are River Waves and Why Do They Matter

• River waves, also referred to as flood or flow waves, are temporary surges in water flow typically caused by intense rainfall, snowmelt, ice jams, or dam breaches.
• Unlike ocean waves driven by wind and tides, river waves are transient, unsteady phenomena that can stretch for tens to hundreds of kilometers.
• These waves play a crucial ecological role by transporting nutrients and organisms, but also pose flood risks to downstream populations.
• Previously, such large-scale waves could only be detected locally by ground stream gauges, which are sparse in many global regions.

SWOT Satellite FAQs

Q1: What does SWOT stand for in the SWOT satellite?
Ans: SWOT stands for Surface Water and Ocean Topography.

Q2: Which agencies developed the SWOT satellite?
Ans: It is a joint mission of NASA, CNES (France), UK Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency.

Q3: When was the SWOT satellite launched?
Ans: SWOT was launched in December 2022 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Source: PHY