The SWOT satellite includes a novel instrument called KaRIn (Ka-band Radar Interferometer) that enables measurements of water height with an order of magnitude better resolution than current satellites.

This precise measurement requires advanced radar processing techniques that in the case of KaRIn are done on board the satellite, as compared to previous satellites that downlinked the collected data to be analyzed on the ground. This processing reduces the amount of data that has to be transferred from the satellite to the ground.

Even so, SWOT produces an unprecedented amount of data to achieve a global measurement of Earth's water. -EP