Arctic

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

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.

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

Arctic Lakes

Highly visible in their red shirts, SWOT project team members - including Project Manager Parag Vaze at left - interact with the public during the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) "Open House" ...

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...

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).

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.

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.

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

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

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...

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

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...

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

Amazon Fishermen

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Siberian Lakes