SWOT Arrives at Vandenberg Space Force Base

A container with the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite is offloaded from an Air Force C-5 airplane on Oct. 16, at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California. SWOT is an international collaboration that will survey water on more than 90&percnt of Earth's surface.

SWOT is being jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the United Kingdom Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA is providing the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES is providing the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the platform, and ground control segment. CSA is providing the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is providing the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

For more information, see:
https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/