The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was flown aboard the space shuttle Endeavour February 11-22, 2000. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) participated in an international project to acquire radar data which were used to create the first near-global set of land elevations. The radars used during the SRTM mission were actually developed and flown on two Endeavour missions in 1994. The C-band Spaceborne Imaging Radar and the X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (X-SAR) hardware were used on board the space shuttle in April and October 1994 to gather data about Earth's environment. The technology was modified for the SRTM mission to collect interferometric radar, which compared two radar images or signals taken at slightly different angles. This mission used single-pass interferometry, which acquired two signals at the same time by using two different radar antennas. An antenna located on board the space shuttle collected one data set and the other data set was collected by an antenna located at the end of a 60-meter mast that extended from the shuttle. Differences between the two signals allowed for the calculation of surface elevation. Endeavour orbited Earth 16 times each day during the 11-day mission, completing 176 orbits. SRTM successfully collected radar data over 80% of the Earth's land surface between 60° north and 56° south latitude with data points posted every 1 arc-second (approximately 30 meters). Two resolutions of finished grade SRTM data are available through EarthExplorer from the collection held in the USGS EROS archive: 1 arc-second (approximately 30-meter) high resolution elevation data offer worldwide coverage of void filled data at a resolution of 1 arc-second (30 meters) and provide open distribution of this high-resolution global data set. Some tiles may still contain voids. The SRTM 1 Arc-Second Global (30 meters) data set will be released in phases starting September 24, 2014. Users should check the coverage map in EarthExplorer to verify if their area of interest is available. 3 arc-second (approximately 90-meter) medium resolution elevation data are available for global coverage. The 3 arc-second data were resampled using cubic convolution interpolation for regions between 60° north and 56° south latitude. [Summary provided by the USGS.]

UPDATE: Data no longer available from this page. All non-working links have been removed (19/7/21)

Users must follow instructions below from NASA to access data:

SRTM data are also available globally at 1 arc second resolution (SRTMGL1.003) through the Data Pool (https://e4ftl01.cr.usgs.gov/MEASURES/SRTMGL1.003/) or from EarthExplorer where it is listed as NASA SRTM3 SRTMGL1. Please sign in with NASA Earthdata Login Credentials to download data from the NASA LP DAAC Collections. These datasets require login on both NASA Earthdata and USGS EarthExplorer systems to access data. After you create your account, you will also need to “authorize” the LP DAAC Data Pool application. On the Profile page in your Earthdata account you will need to select My Applications. On that page make sure the LP DAAC Data Pool is listed. If it isn't then select Authorize More Applications. In the dialog box type in LP DAAC Data Pool and click Search For Applications. Select Approve when presented with the lpdaac_datapool. Keep everything checked but you can uncheck the Yes, I would like to be notified box. Select Authorize and the LP DAAC Data Pool should be added to your Approved Applications. You might benefit from using the AppEEARS tool. ·
o AppEEARS landing page: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/

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o The users will need and https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/?_ga=2.148606453.334533939.1615325167-1213876668.1613754504. Click or tap if you trust this link.">Earthdata Login

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o Getting started instructions can be found here: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/help

Previously available here: Digital Elevation Model of Ireland, from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), sampled at 3 arc second intervals in latitude & longitude (about every 90m) in heightmap (.HGT) format.''Latitudes & longitudes are referenced to WGS84, heights are in meters referenced to the WGS84/EGM96 geoid.'' Please see the linked pdf files for further documentation.''A QGIS project for the hgt files is also attached.

SRTM data are also available globally at 1 arc second resolution (SRTMGL1.003) through the Data Pool (https://e4ftl01.cr.usgs.gov/MEASURES/SRTMGL1.003/) or from EarthExplorer where it is listed as NASA SRTM3 SRTMGL1. Please sign in with NASA Earthdata Login Credentials to download data from the NASA LP DAAC Collections. These datasets require login on both NASA Earthdata and USGS EarthExplorer systems to access data. After you create your account, you will also need to “authorize” the LP DAAC Data Pool application. On the Profile page in your Earthdata account you will need to select My Applications. On that page make sure the LP DAAC Data Pool is listed. If it isn't then select Authorize More Applications. In the dialog box type in LP DAAC Data Pool and click Search For Applications. Select Approve when presented with the lpdaac_datapool. Keep everything checked but you can uncheck the Yes, I would like to be notified box. Select Authorize and the LP DAAC Data Pool should be added to your Approved Applications. You might benefit from using the AppEEARS tool. · o AppEEARS landing page: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/ · o The users will need and https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/?_ga=2.148606453.334533939.1615325167-1213876668.1613754504. Click or tap if you trust this link.">Earthdata Login · o Getting started instructions can be found here: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/help Previously available here: Digital Elevation Model of Ireland, from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), sampled at 3 arc second intervals in latitude & longitude (about every 90m) in heightmap (.HGT) format.''Latitudes & longitudes are referenced to WGS84, heights are in meters referenced to the WGS84/EGM96 geoid.'' Please see the linked pdf files for further documentation.''A QGIS project for the hgt files is also attached.