Lake Calado, Amazon

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 ...

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

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

NASA’s Blue Marble

Amazon Fishermen

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

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).

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for SWOT.

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

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

Floodplain Channel in the Amazon

Pictured are team members who helped load the hardware for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's research instruments onto a C-17 airplane pose for a picture. The payload left M...

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

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...

Artist's impression of the future SWOT satellite making sea surface height observations, even through clouds.

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.

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...

Canada is home to more than 30,000 lakes including these water bodies in Northern Alberta. The abundance of surface freshwater in Canada makes it a prime target for AirSWOT investigations.

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...

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...

Siberian Lakes

Arctic

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

Teams from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, loaded the scientific payload for the SWOT Earth-observing satelli...