Quick Facts

Mission Name

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT)

Spacecraft

Dimensions

Height of spacecraft bus and payload: 16.4 feet (5 meters)
Solar panels: 48.8 feet (14.875 meters) in length, with an area of 335 square feet (31 square meters)
Boom length between Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) antennas: 33 feet (10 meters)
Spacecraft launch mass, including onboard propellant: approximately 4,850 pounds (2,200 kilograms)

SWOT team members attach the science payload to the main body of the spacecraft in a clean room at Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France.

Credit: CNES/Thales Alenia Space

Payload Science Instruments

KaRIn; nadir altimeter; microwave radiometer; X-band system; precise orbit determination package that includes the Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) instrument, the laser reflector array (LRA), and the global positioning system (GPS) receiver.

Power

Two deployable motorized solar arrays provide 8 kilowatts; the spacecraft has a 1.5-kilowatt total power demand.

Battery

32-amp-hour battery

Propulsion

Eight 4.95-pound-force (22 newton) hydrazine thrusters

Mission

Launch Date

No earlier than Dec. 15, 2022

Launch Site

Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Central California

Launch Vehicle

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

Prime Mission Duration

Three years

Coverage of Earth

SWOT will cover the entire surface of Earth between 78 degrees south and 78 degrees north latitude at least once every 21 days.

This illustration shows how the SWOT spacecraft will collect data in crisscrossing paths around Earth.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Program

International Collaboration

SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. 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 DORIS system, the nadir altimeter, the radio-frequency subsystem that supports KaRIn (together with the UK Space Agency, which contributed a high-power switching subsystem), the satellite platform, and the ground-control segment. The CSA is providing a key part of the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is also providing the launch vehicle and associated launch services.

Budget

NASA investment: $807.4 million
CNES investment: 340 million euros (not including operations after launch)
UK Space Agency Investment: £12.22 million
CSA investment: CA$15.4 million

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