Arctic Lakes

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.

Floodplain Channel in the Amazon

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.

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...

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.

Siberian Lakes

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

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

Alaska lakes.

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

Amazon Fishermen

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.

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

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

Visiting Scout uses a color-coded, calibrated stick to determine "sea surface topography" within a wooden box while his sister records his results by placing stickers on a card.

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...

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

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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...

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 ...

NASA’s Blue Marble

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