The Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) is an altimeter used to measure water surface heights and one instrument aboard the NASA/CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales)/CSA (Canadian Space Agency)/United Kingdom Space Agency Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. KaRIn is a near-nadir (+/- 2.7° look angle) swath-based instrument that measures the highly reflective water surface. The instrument acquires measurements at Ka-band (35.75 GHz) with two Ka-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antennae at opposite ends of a 10-m boom. The KaRin instrument consists of the KaRIn Digital Electronics Subsystem (KDES), the Radio Frequency Unit (RFU), the High Power Amplifier (HPA), and the Deployable Antenna Assembly.
Delivery of Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite data products will cease on November 1, 2026. Data users should transition now to alternative products from NOAA-21 and NOAA-20.
Suomi NPP data announcement