Arctic Lakes

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

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 ...

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

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

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

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...

Floodplain Channel in the Amazon

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).

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

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

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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...

Artist’s concept of seven altimeters orbiting Earth: Jason-CS/Sentinel-6B, SWOT, Sentinel-6A, Jason 3, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason 1 and OSTM/Jason 2.

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

Arctic

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...

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...

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.

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.

Alaska lakes.

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

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

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.