A Cornish company that developed critical equipment for a major new NASA space mission is celebrating following the satellite’s successful launch into orbit.
The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) spacecraft, which lifted off from California on Friday (December 16), will spend the next three years surveying nearly all the water on the planet’s surface.
The satellite is the first of its kind and was built for NASA and French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. It will provide high-definition data on the salt- and fresh-water on 90% of the Earth.
The information will provide insights into how the planet's oceans influences climate change; how a warming world affects lakes, rivers, and reservoirs; and how communities can better prepare for disasters, such as floods.
The hardware for the high-resolution radar components on the satellite was supplied by Bodmin-based Flann Microwave - a designer and manufacturer of precision microwave components. The company, which was founded in 1956, has been working on the project since 2015 after being selected by NASA’s research and development hub, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL had previously used Flann Microwave’s high-precision test and measurement product range.
Due to the critical performance requirements of the project, Flann worked with the engineers at JPL to develop custom-made waveguide equipment for spaceflight operations. The equipment is designed to withstand the rigours of spaceflight and help provide higher accuracy and precision measurements of Earth’s lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans, as well as mapping ocean surface height, in greater detail than previous measurement systems.
SWOT launched atop a SpaceX rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base. It will undergo a series of checks and calibrations before it starts collecting science data in about six months.
Tamlin Pavelsky, the SWOT science team lead, said the satellite would help the world understand changing risks from flooding, opportunities for sustainable water use, and the “fundamental natures” of these natural systems.
He said: “SWOT will usher in a new golden age for the science of rivers and lakes. Right now, we can measure how the amount of water in lakes and reservoirs changes for a few thousand lakes worldwide. With SWOT, we’ll be able to observe millions.”
Sam Brokenshire, technical sales manager at Flann Microwave, added: “The space market is currently growing exponentially. At this moment in time, the space market for Flann accounts for less than 5% of current projects but we could be seeing this value increase significantly over just the next few years.”
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