Surface Water Ocean Topography Mission (SWOT), observing Earth’s precious water from space

A new satellite mission for oceanography and hydrology science called Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is jointly being developed by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) with contributions from the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). SWOT will utilize the radar interferometry technique for making wide-swath altimetric measurements of the elevation of surface water on land and the ocean’s surface topography. SWOT data will provide critical information needed to assess water resources on land, track regional sea level changes, monitor coastal processes, and revolutionize oceanography by detecting ocean features with ten times better resolution than present technologies. This paper describes the successful launch and mission's current status