Lake Calado, Amazon

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

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

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.

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).

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

This image shows sea surface heights off the northern California coast in August 2023 as measured by the SWOT satellite.

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.

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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.  

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

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

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

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

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...

Amazon Fishermen

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

This SWOT "Bannerbug" exhibit was created for display during hardware tests conducted during an eleven-day period in October 2008.

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

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

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...

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...

Alaska lakes.

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

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