Launched February 11, 2000, the STS-99 Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) was the most ambitious Earth mapping mission to date. This illustration shows the Space Shuttle Endeavour orbiting some 145 miles (233 kilometers) above Earth. With C-band and X-band outboard anternae at work, one located in the Shuttle bay and the other located on the end of a 60-meter deployable mast, the SRTM radar was able to penetrate clouds as well as provide its own illumination, independent of daylight, obtaining 3-dimentional topographic images of the world's surface up to the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. The mission completed 222 hours of around the clock radar mapping, gathering enough information to fill more than 20,000 CDs.