Arctic

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...

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

Lake Calado, Amazon

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

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.

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

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

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'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...

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).

Emblem for the SWOT mission.

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

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

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

Visiting Scout uses a color-coded, calibrated stick to determine "sea surface topography" within a wooden box while his sister records his results by placing stickers on a card.

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

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...

Siberian Lakes

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

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.  

Arctic Lakes

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

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

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

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.