Arctic Lakes

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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 of Mexico within a wooden box.

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

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

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

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

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

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

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

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...

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).

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

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

Amazon Fishermen

Lake Calado, Amazon

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.

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

Siberian Lakes

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...

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

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