Amazon Fishermen

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...

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...

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.

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

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

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

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

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.

Arctic Lakes

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

An image of the original concept for the Water and Terrestrial Elevation Recovery (WATER) Mission, which later became SWOT.

NASA’s Blue Marble

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

Alaska lakes.

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

Highly visible in their red shirts, SWOT project team members - including Project Manager Parag Vaze at left - interact with the public during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) "Open House" ...

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

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

The logo for the Surface Water Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission.

SWOT Applications Lead, Margaret Srinivasan, helps young visitors match data user types - from coastal safety officers to farmers - with pictures representing SWOT applications.

Crowds flock to the Earth Sciences exhibits during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) "Open House" event, giving volunteers (red shirts) a chance to share information about their various miss...

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...

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.

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