Arctic

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

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

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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...

Lake Calado, Amazon

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

Arctic Lakes

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

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 concept of seven altimeters orbiting Earth: Jason-CS/Sentinel-6B, SWOT, Sentinel-6A, Jason 3, TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason 1 and OSTM/Jason 2.

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

A Flooded Forest in the 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.

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).

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

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.

Alaska lakes.

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

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

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.  

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...

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

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