Amazon Fishermen

AirSWOT plays a key role in SWOT mission development. It allows scientists to study interferometric data before launch and thus be prepared to effectively interpret SWOT data after launch.

A photograph of the Varzea Forest area of Brazil (3 of 4).

This collaborative mission poster, designed by CNES (French Space Agency), shows the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite soaring over an abstract of a water molecule.

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

Siberian Lakes

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

The first 90 days of the SWOT science mission will be flown in a "fast-sampling" phase that revisits specific areas once per day. This phase will begin after a 90-day commissioning phase for engine...

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).

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...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Open House visitors are delighted to see how well their color-coded stickers match the "sea surface topography" model of the Gulf Stream within a wooden box.

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

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

SWOT will collect data across a 75-mile (120-kilometer) wide swath, with a gap in the center for an altimetry track. This animation shows the collection of data over the state of Florida, which is ...

Alaska lakes.

An artist’s concept of the SWOT spacecraft (February 2015).

Artist’s concept of seven altimeters orbiting Earth: Jason-CS/Sentinel-6B, SWOT, Sentinel-6A, Jason 3, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason 1 and OSTM/Jason 2.

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...

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

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...

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

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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