Arctic Lakes

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).

Amazon Fishermen

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

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.

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

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

An early rendering of the SWOT spacecraft (February 2011).

Siberian Lakes

Lake Calado, Amazon

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.

Arctic

NASA’s Blue Marble

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.

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...

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...

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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

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

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...

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