[Satellite TODAY 01-05-11] Thales Alenia Space signed a contract with French space agency CNES to produce the Surface Waves Investigation and Monitoring (SWIM) instrument as part of a joint French-Chinese program to develop an Earth observation satellite, the satellite manufacturer announced Jan. 4.

    The SWIM multibeam Ku-band radar will be integrated with the China France Oceanography Satellite (CFOSat), built by CNES and the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Thales Alenia Space has built similar spectrometers for other civil spacecraft, such as the Siral instrument on the Cryosat satellite, AltiKa on Saral and Poseidon on the Jason satellite.

    CFOSat’s mission is to detect and characterize surface winds and ocean wave spectrum properties. The SWIM instrument will be paired with a SCAT instrument made by China to form the payload for the CFOSat satellite.