Arctic Lakes

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

AirSWOT is using parts of Saskatchewan as a testing ground for mapping water levels.

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

Lake Calado, Amazon

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

Arctic

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

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

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.  

Amazon Fishermen

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...

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

Alaska lakes.

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

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

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...

Soccer Nets on a levee in the Amazon

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.

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...

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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...

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

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