Lake Calado, Amazon

SWOT is being jointly developed 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...

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

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 of Mexico within a wooden box.

Alaska lakes.

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

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

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.

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...

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

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...

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.

Amazon Fishermen

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

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

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

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...

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

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.

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.  

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...

Arctic Lakes