1. Detecting New Ocean Features (double resolution on undersea mountain heights, heat and carbon transport, ocean circulation at 15–25 km)
2. Enabling Data Applications (?, promote products, facilitate feedback, provide collaborations, design communication strategies)
3. Assessing Freshwater Resources (time varying water presence, flow, hydrology, and detection of possible water areas currently dry)
Personally, in charge of the project, would have led with the last item (3) and reordered the list as 3, 1, 2. The second objective is so vague it seems like a throw it over the fence objective and hope somebody does something.
Looking, it seems like the project is using interferometric synthetic-aperture radar [2][3][4]. Notably, this is actually rather difficult to tell from their instrument list and data packages. Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and Microwave Radiometer. Low-Rate (Ocean) Interferogram Data Product, *Radiometer Brightness Temperatures and Troposphere Data Product (including Operational and Interim) [5] The Wikipedia page is quite a bit clearer about the capabilities. [3]
Lots of other cool stuff that can be done with distant, remote sensing, synthetic-aperture radar, with a 15–25 km resolution. List just from the intro of the Wikipedia article. Geophysical natural hazards (earthquakes), volcanoes and landslides, ice flows (deformation and cracking, glaciers, icebergs) and structural engineering (subsidence and structural stability).
Ex: See the waves of ground oscillation ripple away from each earthquake observed. [6]
SWOT’s orbit extends from 78° S to 78° N, covering at least 86% of the globe. SWOT revisits the same path all over the Earth every 21 days in 292 unique orbits. It also has a microwave Radiometer that measures the amount of water vapor between the satellite and Earth's surface. More water vapor means slower radar signals. Probably can do volumetric cloud imaging over the 86% number every 3 weeks. It's a little slow for weather satellites, yet averaged gives a general idea of cloud depth expected during each season on most parts of the Earth.
"somewhere along the line it seems like NASA had the ability taken away to advertise properly." This is literally true. JPL had its science communication, education, and outreach teams gutted last year. For that small investment in people and programs, the public gets to better understand where their tax dollars are going, more people are aware of and can use the products, and kids can learn and be inspired.
Generally agree on the sentiment, about the "small investment" relative public awareness and access to technology, science, and cultural benefits of Space investment.
For the most part though, compared to some of what's happened in some of the other parts of the federal government recently, kind of glad NASA has managed to avoid a lot of the really bad fallout. Current government departures are around 116,600 [1], so the 8% is bad at JPL, yet 530 employees and 40 contractors, still not that horrible compared to some of the federal agencies.
Not in support of the trend, or the method that the cuts have been implemented in the federal government, especially since the feds already smaller population wise than historically. However, generally better results for NASA than some areas.
The DoD had 5,400 layoffs, and they're considering 50,000. Health and Human Service got 14,000 total across the CDC, NIH, FDA, and generally HHS. Pretty ugly in some parts of the feds right now.
Glad NASA seemed to have mostly been looking ahead and trimming a bit rather than get the meat axe like some parts of the fed have been getting. They've literally been referring to it as a meat axe in some agencies. 23 this year is all that's been listed so far for NASA. They're also trimming consultancies first, which are probably mostly expensive handouts anyways ($15 million each, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Guidehouse, and McKinsey & Co.)
On the original comment. Think part of the issue, is still kind of the same issue that has been the issue pretty much since the Space Shuttle went away, possibly earlier. This general trend of projects, where nobody really seems to know quite what it is they're even trying to accomplish, or what it might be used for. That tends to transmit in a lot of the literature, webpages, and direction at the agency. Vague, throw if over the fence behavior, see if anybody has a use for it.
The ISS has had the same issue for decades, which has always been frustrating. Looked through the ISS research a while back (trying to apply for grants using NSPIRES) and it was frustrating both how much of the research had never really been used for anything decades later, and how much NASA was effectively funding grants just to try to convince somebody to look at the data that was already collected.
JPL unfortunately also has suffered alot of the same behavior. The Mars Sample Return Mission was such a boondoggle in terms of money expenditure, and during the last Town Hall I listened to on the subject, it seemed like almost every other project nearby had the main question "Why is all our money being siphoned up by the Mars Sample Return?" Lot of vague goals, vague timelines, vague budget costs. There's a general summary of the issues over at SpaceFlightNow [2]
Having been near the SLS project, very much the same. Frustrating to even sit in rooms where the subject was discussed. "Why are we looking at this slide again? Everybody knows what's going to get chosen." It had that same sensation that nobody really knew quite what the objective of even going to the moon was, or why they were even bothering to build a rocket. The colony stuff and outpost parts all seemed vague decades ago, like nobody really believed they were probably going to get to the launch anyways. There wasn't anything like the vision or concepts of the von Braun or Kennedy eras. Eh, it's something to do.
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