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...

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

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

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

Siberian Lakes

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.

Pictured are team members who helped load the hardware for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite's research instruments onto a C-17 airplane pose for a picture. The payload left M...

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...

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

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

Amazon Fishermen

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.  

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

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 ...

SWOT will provide NASA’s first global survey of Earth’s surface water.

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

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

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

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

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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.

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

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

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

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.