Lake Calado, Amazon

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

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

An early rendering of the SWOT spacecraft (February 2011).

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

Floodplain Channel in the Amazon

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

SWOT is being jointly developed by NASA and Centre National D’Études Spatiales (CNES).

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

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.

AirSWOT is using parts of Saskatchewan as a testing ground for mapping water levels.

Amazon Fishermen

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

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

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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...

Mounted above the Payload Module, the Spacecraft Bus is a multi-purpose platform housing many of the electronics required for the observatory to function, including components for power, propulsion...

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

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

Part of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's science instrument payload sits in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during assembly.  

Arctic Lakes

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

NASA’s Blue Marble

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.