NEWS DESK
WASHINGTON: A satellite on Friday lifted off from California with a mission to survey nearly all water bodies on Earth, offering significant insights into how they are impacted or influenced by climate change.
The Ocean Topography and Surface Water satellite, a billion-dollar project jointly developed by France’s space agency CNES and NASA, took off atop a SpaceX rocket at 1146 GMT from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
NASA, in a statement, said that after undergoing checks and calibrations, it would start collecting scientific data in about six months.
Satellite to study how water moves across planet
“The satellite will bring us a revolutionary development in our understanding of how water moves across our planet,” NASA’s Earth Science Division director, Karen St. Germain, said ahead of the launch.
“We will see detail in eddies and circulation andd currents in the oceans that we have never seen before.”
NASA’s Divisional Director said the study would help predict floods in areas with very much water and manage water in areas prone to drought and climate change effects.
French space agency CNES’s Selma Cherchali told a press conference on Tuesday that the satellite represents a “revolution in hydrology. We aim to offer fine-scale observations 10 times improved than the current technology offer.”
SWOT will have the most transparent view from a height of 890 kilometers (550 miles) yet of the oceans of the world, allowing it to track the rise in sea levels and lakes and rivers.
