The SpaceX rocket lifted off early Friday morning carrying a satellite built by the United States and France designed to conduct the first global survey of Earth’s surface water, a mission that should shed new light on the mechanics and effects of weather changes.
A Falcon 9 booster, owned and operated by Elon Musk’s commercial rocket company, lit up the predawn skies along the California coast as it rolled off its launch pad just before 4 a.m. local time at US Space Force Base Vandenberg.
Takeoff controlled by a team from NASAwas shown live on the air of the US space agency.
Its payload, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography Satellite, or SWOT, includes advanced microwave radar technology to collect high-definition measurements of oceans, lakes, reservoirs and rivers over 90% of the globe.
The researchers said data collected by radar at least twice every 21 days will be used to improve ocean circulation models, support weather and climate forecasts, and help manage freshwater supplies in drought-stricken regions.
Satellite sized components SUV they were built primarily by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the French space agency CNES.
SWOT, which has been under development by the US space agency for almost 20 years with input from colleagues in Canada and the UK, is one of 15 missions listed by the National Research Council as projects that NASA must undertake in the next decade.
