Alaska Lakes

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (1 of 4).

The Canadian Space Agency will contribute to the SWOT Mission by providing a high-power assembly component for SWOT’s Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn).

Siberian Lakes

Lake Calado, Amazon

Visiting Scout uses a color-coded, calibrated stick to determine "sea surface topography" within a wooden box while his sister records his results by placing stickers on a card.

Amazon Fishermen

The SWOT satellite observatory is being jointly built by NASA and Centre National D’Études Spatiales (CNES).

SWOT technologies - advanced wide-swath technology, ocean and surface water topography measurements, and high-resolution products - will support such societal needs as dams, shipping, and surface w...

The SWOT Payload module consists of two primary components: the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and the Nadir module.

SWOT leaving NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, en route to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California. Once the scientific payload arrived, it was sent to a Thale...

Arctic Lakes

This animation shows estimates of average sea ice freeboard — or the amount of ice above the waterline — taken over a 21-day period from Aug. 8, 2023, to Jan. 14, 2024, by the Surface Water and Oce...

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (2 of 4).

A view of SWOT from inside a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft, as it was being loaded en route to Thales Alenia Space near Cannes, France.

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

Engineers integrate separate parts of the SWOT satellite into one in a Thales Alenia Space clean room facility in Cannes, France.

A photograph of the Amazon River Delta, captured by Landsat in 2006.

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (4 of 4).

A diagram illustrating the swaths of data that SWOT will collect. 

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

SWOT's nominal coverage during its 3-year science orbit will include measurements between 78°N and 78°S collected over a period of 21 days. Maps show the coverage after 3 days (left) and the full 2...

The U.K. Space Agency will provide a part of the radar payload for SWOT.

A banner explaining the purpose of the SWOT mission, created and displayed during testing.

An artist’s concept of the SWOT spacecraft (March 2012).

SWOT will provide NASA’s first global survey of Earth’s surface water.