Arctic

A Flooded Forest in the Amazon

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

Lake Calado, Amazon

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...

Arctic Lakes

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

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.

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.

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...

Disappearing lakes in Barrow, Alaska.

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

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

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...

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.  

The SWOT Payload module consists of two primary components: the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) and the Nadir module.

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