The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) was a partnership between NASA and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Flown aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour (11-22 February 2000), SRTM fulfilled its mission to map the world in three dimensions. The USGS is under agreement with NGA and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to distribute SRTM elevation products derived from the C-band radar data. SRTM utilized interferometric C-band Spaceborne Imaging Radar to generate elevation data over 80 percent of the Earth's land surface.

Global SRTM data at a resolution of 1 arc-second have been edited to delineate and flatten water bodies, better define coastlines, remove spikes and wells, and fill small voids. Larger areas of missing data or voids were filled by the NGA using interpolation algorithms in conjunction with other sources of elevation data. The SRTM 1 Arc-Second Global 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.